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Racial Balance in GSL (2010-2013 WoL)![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Eed7GHk.png)
Introduction
As the only person(?) in the world who watched this unpopular ZvZ GSL final, let me inform all of you that, a few minutes ago,
+ Show Spoiler [GSL final spoiler] +
has become the new GSL champion. Now that the last WoL GSL is over, this must be the best time to discuss the history of racial balance in GSL. Starcraft is an asymmetric RTS with 3 distinct races. As such, balance has always been a big concern. It is ideal for every race to have exactly 50% winrate against each other, but it rarely happens. Therefore, balance discussion has never ended since Day 1. However, illogical “X race OP” arguments based solely on a few games, personal anecdotes, preconception or hatred are rampant in this community. For more legitimate discussion, statistically meaningful enough number of games need to be examined to see if X race is actually OP and by how much if so.
While GSL stats shouldn’t be the only source of balance discussion, it should be weighed heavily because GSL is THE league where the absolute best players compete, and everyone else should aspire to be like them. No one would care even if Bronze league were 100% Zerg simply because they lack skill to defend 6 pool. (just if) Similarly, results of random guys in master league who can’t play as good as GSL competitors don’t matter as much when it comes to balance. They all just have to improve. GSL, the best league on the planet, is where the balance is at. Let’s take a look at numbers.
Table & Graph
+ Show Spoiler +
Note & Disclaimer
+ Show Spoiler +1. Balance whine at your own risk.Not that many people care about WoL balance at this point, but there seems to be always a few people who can’t help posting aggressive hate comments, knowing an incoming ban. If you want a ban so desperately, you can always request at The Automated Ban List2. I am more than fully aware that the data is inevitably skewed. For example, - Maybe Open S1 Ro64 scrub vs another scrub match shouldn’t have the same weight as Code S Finals. - There have been several format changes. (2011 tournaments are shorter with fewer games played but held more frequently etc.) - Sample size is relatively small. etc. etc. There must be about another dozens of factors. However, I can’t magically come up with a totally unbiased formula to adjust all these factors, either. 0% flawed comparison is impossible no matter how numbers are taken. Therefore, raw numbers from TLPD are used on “a win is a win” basis. Not a perfect statistics, but it should be good enough to find out the general trend, which is the goal here. 3. There are 18 GSL titles in WoL: 3 from Open Season, 13 from Code S, 1 from World Championship, and 1 from Super Tournament. However, World Championship is excluded in this thread because the format is completely different from the other ones. In a sense, Open Season and Super Tournament are Code S and Code A combined with 64(63) participants instead of normal 32(31). These 4 tournaments count as Code S for convenience. Therefore, 17 tournaments(13 Code A) are in the data above. Also, other GOMTV organized invitationals like Blizzard Cup etc. are excluded. 4. Up-Down matches, wild card, and Code A qualifiers are excluded to keep it simple and to save my time figuring out format details for each season. By GSL, I mean either Code S or Code S+A. 5. Calculation for winrates doesn’t include mirror match-ups. Obvious, but important to note. 6. Colors in tables = colored race has higher than 50% winrate in a match-up, tournament or overall. 7. To make up for the small sample size and fluctuating results, 3-Tournament Average is used to find out the general trend. It is basically a simple moving average used in stock market etc. 3-T Ave. = average winrate of a particular tournament, the previous tournament, and the next tournament. For Open S1 and S1 2013, it is the average of 2 adjacent tournaments because the 3rd tournament isn’t available for calculation. 8. I don’t play much ladder these days, but I am a Zerg player if that matters for anything. I’m not trying to push my “Zerg agenda,” believe it or not. I felt I needed to mention the race I play just in case. Unbiased content is hard to come by these days isn’t it?
Objective Analysis
+ Show Spoiler +Facts only without interpretation: - Terran is the most represented race in Code S. 297T-190Z-179P accumulated total players.
- TvT is the most played mirror match-up in Code S+A. It is played more than 3 times the number of ZvZ and PvP (631 TvT – 209 ZvZ – 208 PvP)
- TvT is the most played mirror match-up both in every Code S and Code S+A except for GSL S1 2013. (for Code S, 14 solo, tied twice)
- ZvP is the least played non-mirror match-up. (1013 TvZ – 655 ZvP – 953 PvT)
- Every race has experienced both the highest and lowest winrate multiple times in Code S+A tournaments.
- Zerg has the highest winrate in Code S. (excl. mirror)
- Terran has the highest winrate in Code A. (excl. mirror)
- Terran has the highest winrate in Code S+A. (excl. mirror)
- Protoss has less than 50% winrate in both ZvP and PvT in Code S+A, hence, less than 50% overall, too.
- Zerg 64.4% in Open S2 is the highest winrate of all time in Code S+A..
- Protoss 32.8% in Aug. is the lowest winrate of all time in Code S+A.
Subjective Analysis
+ Show Spoiler +One might disagree with my own opinion & interpretation: Terran is the most played race in 14 out of 17 tournaments. It must be partially thanks to Terran favored balance during 2011, but I wonder how much is because of Korean Terran tradition ever since BoxeR in BW. GOMTvT is real. When one mirror match-up is played 3 times more than the other two and is the most played mirror in 16 out of 17 tournaments, it is safe to say that GOMTvT prevailed the scene not just for a short period in late 2011 but for almost the entire WoL period. We have to be glad that TvT is arguably the most enjoyable mirror match-up for spectators. Imagine having 3 times more ZvZ or PvP…SC2 e-sports would have died a long time ago. Winrate graph is very volatile in 2010~early 2011. No one knew how to play yet back then, and balance patches were coming frequently. Terran had been the OP race for a long time overall. Terran occasionally choked (July for example), but in 3-Tournament Average, it kept having 50%+ winrate from 2010 all the way up to mid-2012. When all is said and done, “Wings of Liberty” seems an appropriate name for this expansion which Terran dominated for so long. Zerg 3-T Ave. winrate oscillates like a cosine curve, alternating between good times and bad times. The last upward curve is dubbed, “ Lings of Liberty.” The graph shows that it’s a real phenomenon. Zerg is OP today. There is no doubt about it. Zerg “Vengeance” came a little too early. Protoss has been struggling. It is the least represented race with the lowest winrate. 2011 was especially bad year for Protoss. In early-mid 2012, Protoss enjoyed a short heyday, “Blinks of Liberty” if you will  . Even so, it was a moderate dominance compared to Terran / Zerg at other times. Code A is Terran’s playground in PvT. 40.6%(59.4% Terran winrate) is such a disaster for Protoss. Both Terran and Zerg have over 50% winrate overall in Code S+A. Protoss is the only race that doesn’t. Although it’s still within 45%~55% “balanced” line, Protoss needs some more love. Not that Protoss should be OP in HotS because of this, though. Since exactly 50% each is nearly impossible, it would have been nice to have rock-paper-scissors relationship near 50% similar to BW’s T>Z>P>T record. SC2 WoL Code S+A ended with Z>T>P & Z>P. Poor Protoss. So-called “Queen Patch” was so powerful. On one hand, Terran had been favored before the patch in TvZ for more than 1.5 years. On the other hand, Zerg domination after the patch is as big of a problem if not bigger. Terran domination lasted longer, but Zerg domination today is more intense and even at a ridiculous level. Zerg buff itself was a reasonable move by Blizzard as ZvP was also bad for Zerg back then, but it was waaaaay too much. As a result, we have “Lings of Liberty” today. The patch is not the only reason for the current state, but it must be playing a big role considering the timely Zerg rise. Don’t name names, but “patchzerg” exists for sure just like “releaseterran” existed. Having “patch X race” is inevitable when X race is relatively OP. Having said all these, I would say that WoL SC2 is a game that is well-balanced enough if the entire WoL days are taken as one season. One concern is that Protoss has been having the hardest time, but every race and match-up is at least within 45%~55% line. 50% is the ultimate goal, and one might say that the acceptable line is 47%~53%(achieved) or even 49%~51%, but overall, WoL is not as terrible as one might think in terms of balance. Current balance as of March 2013 itself is not fine, but overall balance in “WoL Season” looks fine enough. In summary, 2010 ~ early 2011 = volatile era mid-2011~ late 2011 = Terran OP “ Wings of Liberty” era early 2012 ~ mid 2012 = Protoss OP “ Blinks of Liberty” era late 2012 ~ 2013 = Zerg OP “ Lings of Liberty” era Ultimate summary of WoL GSL: 5, 10, 20 years from now, people won’t care or remember the difference between 2011 and 2012. Details don’t matter when memory is so distant. Then, what is the best way to describe WoL days in a concise manner? How would future history books talk about WoL GSL? Well, when you look at the big picture, there is no remarkable steady imbalance in WoL. No race has been dominant for the entirety. Therefore, I dare say that people will remember WoL GSL with something consistent throughout: “so many Terran players and their GOMTvTs.”
Final Thoughts
+ Show Spoiler +First of all, special thanks to whoever is updating TLPD and Liquipedia pages. I took all stats from there. I think many people already knew this volatile – Terran – Prorotss – Zerg balance transition. Maybe Protoss one was not as obvious. Anyways, it’s always nice to have numbers to back up the claim. There are many other interesting numbers I didn’t point out in my analysis. Please post your findings and thoughts. I used the word “OP” casually in this thread, but I’m not trying to incite people or anything. Also, I avoided “There are more X race in Ro.8” line because it is not a substantial balance argument. Comparing map-by-map results is how it should be done, and I explained why at my previous thread: Balance Discussion Math(Best of N format analysis). Thank you all for reading. This is my last WoL guide/article. Once HotS is out, there will be no or fewer articles for a while because I want to first play single player campaign and Monobattle on Ladder (1v1). Then, I will focus on updating existing guides/articles with HotS changes. Your feedback is much appreciated as always.
Orek's Articles/Guides
+ Show Spoiler +
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cool article! it was a nice read.
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lol protoss was never good, that's sad
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Not sure if I'm surprised at Protoss's trouble in the GSL
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That's pretty darn gross! And Protoss... wth.
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It definitely was a good time to stop. I don't like where this was going.
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Nice overview over the years. Terran seems to be the highest on average overall but that is a slowly dropping trend. I wonder how it plays out after a year of HotS. Thanks for the good read :>
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People remember what they want to remember; the difference between Code Z and GOMTvT is that the TvT was actually fairly enjoyable in comparison. The view counts for this GSL finals (and especially for the very last WoL finals), were very underwhelming.
Personally, I think it was fair that Zerg was more represented in 2012 than Terran, but the problem is that the viewers aren't all Zerg, and the imbalance (which there clearly was) probably hurt SC2 eSports a lot more than GOMTvT ever did.
I'd also like to add that there was a clear disparity between Korean and foreign Terran players when Terran was doing well, while the majority of successful foreign players are Zergs.
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Yeah, the zealot has been sad a long time in GSL :`( But well this has been known for a long time.
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TLADT24920 Posts
Interesting graph and seeing the dominance at different times! Will comment when I read the rest of the analysis
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you can see the immortal patch and the queen patch reflected in the chart.
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Just missed overall GSL graphs, but not bad.
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Nicely done, very solid artcile
The upward trend for zerg is really frightening. Wonder how much further that could've gone if not for HotS getting in the way.
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It's a pity you don't have the code A+S participants stats. I think it's the most desperate one for protoss. Actually season 1 2013 is the best balanced in term of participants number in code A+S iirc.
Edit: Especially the number of terrans participating has been even bigger in code A than in code S I think, so it would have been good to add it in the participants graph, along with a code A+S participants graph as well. I'm not sure if everyone realize how it has almost always been GOMTvT actually.
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Win rates, not racial imbalance, the better players won, not the race. I wish in HOTS people would attribute wins to player skills not trying to blame it on racial imbalance.
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East Gorteau22261 Posts
On March 09 2013 20:03 Terranist wrote:
you can see the immortal patch and the queen patch reflected in the chart.
Yeah, Zerg was at an all-time low (well, tied with Jan '11) before the patch - I guess something needed to be done. Not overdone, though, which is what happened. Still, poor Protoss though holy shit; never the best race TT
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East Gorteau22261 Posts
On March 09 2013 20:07 monkh wrote:
Win rates, not racial imbalance, the better players won, not the race. I wish in HOTS people would attribute wins to player skills not trying to blame it on racial imbalance.
I do not believe he means game balance.
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On March 09 2013 20:07 monkh wrote:
Win rates, not racial imbalance, the better players won, not the race. I wish in HOTS people would attribute wins to player skills not trying to blame it on racial imbalance.
Lol. Blizzard made balance changes to make weaker players win then?
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Never realized that peak zerg beat out beat peak terran.
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On March 09 2013 19:40 Orek wrote:
While GSL stats shouldn’t be the only source of balance discussion, it should be weighed heavily because GSL is THE league where the absolute best players compete, and everyone else should aspire to be like them.
It's fascinating to see the numbers laid out like this. The only thing is I would caution anyone from making conclusions about overall game balance from just one tournament, no matter how important.
If you look at stats from sc2ratings.com, which takes data from all the major tournaments, it shows that during the last 250 days, which roughly covers what's been dubbed the "Lings of Liberty" era, the stats were:
PvT: 50.2%
ZvP: 52.6%
ZvT: 51.4%
PvAll: 48.7%
TvAll: 49.2%
ZvAll: 52%
That's actually remarkably well balanced for a long span of time that has been considered heavily zerg-favoured.
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On March 09 2013 20:14 Evil_Sheep wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2013 19:40 Orek wrote:
While GSL stats shouldn’t be the only source of balance discussion, it should be weighed heavily because GSL is THE league where the absolute best players compete, and everyone else should aspire to be like them.
It's fascinating to see the numbers laid out like this. The only thing is I would caution anyone from making conclusions about overall game balance from just one tournament, no matter how important.
Agreed. Still it's annoying to have a tournament looking imbalanced when it's your favorite one. Because there is no code A+S participants graph, I guess the most relevant graph is the code A+S mirror number graph. This is telling it all really...
Edit: this mirror graph makes me smile when I hear terrans (qxc yesterday for instance) say that TvT are now rare so that he is happy to see some in IEM. Maybe he doesn't watch the GSL but I doubt it a bit...
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On March 09 2013 20:00 Added wrote:
People remember what they want to remember; the difference between Code Z and GOMTvT is that the TvT was actually fairly enjoyable in comparison. The view counts for this GSL finals (and especially for the very last WoL finals), were very underwhelming.
I honestly think the negativity train is what affected the perception of this ZvZ finals. You have a few people complaining about it, then it becomes a bandwagon (cool thing to jump on).
Also, the early days of GOMTVT was when SC2WoL was still new and watching any tournament (at the time) was still cool.
Plus MVP was in most of them, and MVP is a popular player.
The game with MVP vs Top for example, I thought wasn't that great. (Yes, even the first game which was cited as the best game. The nukes mostly did nothing, yes nukes are fun but if they don't do anything, they might as well be Nydus Worms that do nothing.)
Polt vs MMA was fun of course (both fun players). MMA vs MVP was also fun. In both cases, the underdog (Polt in MMA vs Polt, and MMA in MVP MMA finals) managed to win and it became a good storyline. Though in the terms of the actual games themselves, they weren't that great IMO (I say that because I don't particularly remember any amazing thing that happened).
Now the game with Nestea and Losira, I remember that mass of Overseers contaminating the Hatcheries. Epic play and ZvZ is really underrated IMO, there's lots of fun stuff.
Really though, if it wasn't for the personal investment in these T players, I honestly don't view T games that much more interesting. Actually, personal investment is a huge part of whether watching a game is entertaining or not. Regardless of the races played, I don't find watching SC2 itself (even in BW too) that interesting because eventually the same stuff happens. Great storylines is a huge part of whether something is impressive or not.
That's why I feel that ZvZ finals negativity train was overplayed too much IMO.
It's just sad that the last WoL championship player may not get as much credit or attention just because it's was a ZvZ finals. If it were a ZvT finals instead and the Z rolled the T, would that be a better finals (imagine if RorO vs Taeja was the finals, since it was a Bo7 too. Would that RorO vs Taeja game be a better finals since it was too a Bo7? This ZvZ was way better than RorO vs Taeja IMO). (Also the reason I'm not using a hypothetical Symbol vs Taeja finals is because it's better to use something "we already seen". We already seen the RorO vs Taeja Bo7 game, and that series wasn't that great IMO despite being a "TvZ". This finals is a better series, despite being a "ZvZ". Could a TvZ be potentially better? Definitely but only "potentially" and not definitely better. The Innovation vs Symbol games weren't that great either IMO, if we take a TvZ on Symbol's side to match RorO.)
Edit - I guess a TvZ is fun if the Terran wins (notice the two TvZ series I found uninteresting, Z wins). But since that didn't happen (or else we'd be having a Terran in these finals), just enjoy the ZvZ (which is better than PvZ or PvP IMO). It can have some fun cool stuff too.
(I also find it interesting that in most HotS threads nowadays, everyone is "now" complaining about Terran being the most imbalanced. The hate train for anything seems to never end... a bit of a slight exaggeration but I am disappointed at the negativity that can become real contagious to the community.)
Edit 2 - Okay I am mostly done with edits to my post (yep I edited a lot).
Edit 3 - I'm not a Zerg player (despite me defending this ZvZ finals), I just really dislike the negativity that can come from things like this (negativity towards ZvZ isn't just negativity towards ZvZ itself, the players and GOMTV, etc can be affected too). I'm glad there was a huge and filled audience for the finals. (Finally this post isn't to anyone specifically but the feeling I've been getting from people in the LR threads. After reading the ZvZ final LR thread for a bit, I stopped reading it because it had a decent amount of complaining which was totally ruining the hype and fun of the ZvZ finals for me  . Though I did have to mention that GOMTV got Polt on the phone for the montage of past champions interview, which was neat! They didn't forget Polt !)
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On March 09 2013 20:14 Evil_Sheep wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2013 19:40 Orek wrote:
While GSL stats shouldn’t be the only source of balance discussion, it should be weighed heavily because GSL is THE league where the absolute best players compete, and everyone else should aspire to be like them.
It's fascinating to see the numbers laid out like this. The only thing is I would caution anyone from making conclusions about overall game balance from just one tournament, no matter how important. If you look at stats from sc2ratings.com, which takes data from all the major tournaments, it shows that during the last 250 days, which roughly covers what's been dubbed the "Lings of Liberty" era, the stats were: PvT: 50.2% ZvP: 52.6% ZvT: 51.4% PvAll: 48.7% TvAll: 49.2% ZvAll: 52% That's actually remarkably well balanced for a long span of time that has been considered heavily zerg-favoured.
Is there a stat for PvZ in terms of how many protosses win with 2 base-all ins and how many zergs win with ultra late game army?
It seems well balanced from that stat, but I'd wage it's actually pretty deceiving.
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On March 09 2013 20:19 samurai80 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2013 20:14 Evil_Sheep wrote:On March 09 2013 19:40 Orek wrote:
While GSL stats shouldn’t be the only source of balance discussion, it should be weighed heavily because GSL is THE league where the absolute best players compete, and everyone else should aspire to be like them.
It's fascinating to see the numbers laid out like this. The only thing is I would caution anyone from making conclusions about overall game balance from just one tournament, no matter how important. Agreed. Still it's annoying to have a tournament looking imbalanced when it's your favorite one. Because there is no code A+S participants graph, I guess the most relevant graph is the code A+S mirror number graph. This is telling it all really...
On March 09 2013 20:05 samurai80 wrote:
It's a pity you don't have the code A+S participants stats. I think it's the most desperate one for protoss. Actually season 1 2013 is the best balanced in term of participants number in code A+S iirc.
Edit: Especially the number of terrans participating has been even bigger in code A than in code S I think, so it would have been good to add it in the participants graph, along with a code A+S participants graph as well. I'm not sure if everyone realize how it has almost always been GOMTvT actually. The only reason Code S+A participation isn't in the OP is because since 2012, lower half of Code S player "descend" to Code A in a single season so that they get counted twice. TLPD tournament pages don't provide the information on how many of which race come from Code S. I know I can find out by going through all results, but it takes significantly more time to figure out. If you don't mind double counting, it is 241T - 197Z - 198P in 13 tournaments according to my spreadsheet, but this doesn't mean much.
Edit: 241T - 197Z - 198P participants in 13 "Code A" tournaments.
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On March 09 2013 20:24 Goldfish wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2013 20:00 Added wrote:
People remember what they want to remember; the difference between Code Z and GOMTvT is that the TvT was actually fairly enjoyable in comparison. The view counts for this GSL finals (and especially for the very last WoL finals), were very underwhelming. I honestly think the negativity train is what affected the perception of this ZvZ finals. You have a few people complaining about it, then it becomes a bandwagon (cool thing to jump on). Also, the early days of GOMTVT was when SC2WoL was still new and watching any tournament (at the time) was still cool. Plus MVP was in most of them, and MVP is a popular player. The game with MVP vs Top for example, I thought wasn't that great. (Yes, even the first game which was cited as the best game. The nukes mostly did nothing, yes nukes are fun but if they don't do anything, they might as well be Nydus Worms that do nothing.) Polt vs MMA was fun of course (both fun players). MMA vs MVP was also fun. In both cases, the underdog (Polt in MMA vs Polt, and MMA in MVP MMA finals) managed to win and it became a good storyline. Though in the terms of the actual games themselves, they weren't that great IMO (I say that because I don't particularly remember any amazing thing that happened). Now the game with Nestea and Losira, I remember that mass of Overseers contaminating the Hatcheries. Epic play and ZvZ is really underrated IMO, there's lots of fun stuff. Really though, if it wasn't for the personal investment in these T players, I honestly don't view T games that much more interesting. Take note I'm being sort of anti-anti fan of ZvZ haters. It's just sad that the last WoL championship may not get as much credit or attention just because it's a ZvZ. (I also find it interesting that in most HotS threads nowadays, everyone is "now" complaining about Terran being the most imbalanced. The hate train for anything seems to never end... a bit of a slight exaggeration but I am disappointed at the negativity that can become real contagious to the community.)
I agree. ZvZ is usually cool to watch. I think TvT is cool too, but I don't think it is as good as everyone says. But I think the reason why I think that is because I saw way too many of these TvT in GSL. If they were fewer, maybe I would get much more excited about them.
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Thank you so much! Now there is some conclusive evidence that protoss was indeed clearly the worst race in WoL, however hots will fix that. Nice post
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On March 09 2013 20:28 Orek wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2013 20:19 samurai80 wrote:On March 09 2013 20:14 Evil_Sheep wrote:On March 09 2013 19:40 Orek wrote:
While GSL stats shouldn’t be the only source of balance discussion, it should be weighed heavily because GSL is THE league where the absolute best players compete, and everyone else should aspire to be like them.
It's fascinating to see the numbers laid out like this. The only thing is I would caution anyone from making conclusions about overall game balance from just one tournament, no matter how important. Agreed. Still it's annoying to have a tournament looking imbalanced when it's your favorite one. Because there is no code A+S participants graph, I guess the most relevant graph is the code A+S mirror number graph. This is telling it all really... Show nested quote +On March 09 2013 20:05 samurai80 wrote:
It's a pity you don't have the code A+S participants stats. I think it's the most desperate one for protoss. Actually season 1 2013 is the best balanced in term of participants number in code A+S iirc.
Edit: Especially the number of terrans participating has been even bigger in code A than in code S I think, so it would have been good to add it in the participants graph, along with a code A+S participants graph as well. I'm not sure if everyone realize how it has almost always been GOMTvT actually. The only reason Code S+A participation isn't in the OP is because since 2012, lower half of Code S player "descend" to Code A in a single season so that they get counted twice. TLPD tournament pages don't provide the information on how many of which race come from Code S. I know I can find out by going through all results, but it takes significantly more time to figure out. If you don't mind double counting, it is 241T - 197Z - 198P in 13 tournaments according to my spreadsheet, but this doesn't mean much.
I did it once for this season actually and it takes more time indeed. I can try to give you all the numbers if I find the time.
EDIT: And thanks a lot for the great work !
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On March 09 2013 20:24 Goldfish wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2013 20:00 Added wrote:
People remember what they want to remember; the difference between Code Z and GOMTvT is that the TvT was actually fairly enjoyable in comparison. The view counts for this GSL finals (and especially for the very last WoL finals), were very underwhelming. I honestly think the negativity train is what affected the perception of this ZvZ finals. You have a few people complaining about it, then it becomes a bandwagon (cool thing to jump on). Also, the early days of GOMTVT was when SC2WoL was still new and watching any tournament (at the time) was still cool. Plus MVP was in most of them, and MVP is a popular player. The game with MVP vs Top for example, I thought wasn't that great. (Yes, even the first game which was cited as the best game. The nukes mostly did nothing, yes nukes are fun but if they don't do anything, they might as well be Nydus Worms that do nothing.) Polt vs MMA was fun of course (both fun players). MMA vs MVP was also fun. In both cases, the underdog (Polt in MMA vs Polt, and MMA in MVP MMA finals) managed to win and it became a good storyline. Though in the terms of the actual games themselves, they weren't that great IMO (I say that because I don't particularly remember any amazing thing that happened). Now the game with Nestea and Losira, I remember that mass of Overseers contaminating the Hatcheries. Epic play and ZvZ is really underrated IMO, there's lots of fun stuff. Really though, if it wasn't for the personal investment in these T players, I honestly don't view T games that much more interesting. Actually, personal investment is a huge part of whether watching a game is entertaining or not. Regardless of the races played, I don't find watching SC2 itself (even in BW too) that interesting because eventually the same stuff happens. Great storylines is a huge part of whether something is impressive or not. That's why I feel that ZvZ finals negativity train was overplayed too much IMO. It's just sad that the last WoL championship player may not get as much credit or attention just because it's was a ZvZ finals. If it were a ZvT finals instead and the Z rolled the T, would that be a better finals (imagine if RorO vs Taeja was the finals, since it was a Bo7 too.. Would that RorO vs Taeja game be a better finals since it was too a Bo7? This ZvZ was way better than RorO vs Taeja IMO). (I also find it interesting that in most HotS threads nowadays, everyone is "now" complaining about Terran being the most imbalanced. The hate train for anything seems to never end... a bit of a slight exaggeration but I am disappointed at the negativity that can become real contagious to the community.)
Just wanted to point out that I think you are wrong about the nukes in the Mvp vs TOP game. It was pretty much a stalement since both players had tank lines and had the maps cut in half. Although the nukes didn't actually kill much. They forced TOP to move a lot of tanks back (or he would have lost a lot of production) and once TOP's tanks were in his main, that gave Mvp the opening to move his tanks up and TOP was trapped in his natural and you can't move tanks down a ramp against sieged up tanks from Mvp.
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Thank you for this! Also, to confirm this conclusion: + Show Spoiler +On March 09 2013 19:40 Orek wrote:
In summary,
2010 ~ early 2011 = volatile era
mid-2011~ late 2011 = Terran OP “Wings of Liberty” era
early 2012 ~ mid 2012 = Protoss OP “Blinks of Liberty” era
late 2012 ~ 2013 = Zerg OP “Lings of Liberty” era
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T.O.P.
Hong Kong4685 Posts
Overall winrates in GSL aren't a good measure of balance. When zerg gets buffed. Not only does a guy like DRG win more. But a no talent scrub will win more too. This no talent scrub makes it into the GSL whereas before the patch he couldn't make it into the GSL. He makes it in and gets owned.
So you see overall winrates will always stabilize at 50% because changes in balance will allow weaker players to make it into the GSL. A better measure of racial balance is to count the number of players in each level of GSL.
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On March 09 2013 20:38 T.O.P. wrote:
Overall winrates in GSL aren't a good measure of balance. When zerg gets buffed. Not only does a guy like DRG win more. But a no talent scrub will win more too. This no talent scrub makes it into the GSL whereas before the patch he couldn't make it into the GSL. He makes it in and gets owned.
So you see overall winrates will always stabilize at 50% because changes in balance will allow weaker players to make it into the GSL. A better measure of racial balance is to count the number of players in each level of GSL.
This is exactly my thoughts. The number of participants in code A+S is crucial imo. But as Orek said, this number is given nowhere here on TL and it takes actually more time to calculate (I don't say it's difficult of course) because of the current GSL format.
To evaluate the number of participants, the numbers of games for each mirror m-u is a good indication though.
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its kind of a shame, after all the ups and downs the game was hitting perfect balance right before zerg became really overpowered, it was only going to get worse as well. I think its safe to say more zerg nerfs were incoming and then we may have actually reached balance
edit: also, i agree that representation should be important as well, but it should not be the only factor. win rates as well as representation should be looked at for balance
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On March 09 2013 20:38 T.O.P. wrote:
Overall winrates in GSL aren't a good measure of balance. When zerg gets buffed. Not only does a guy like DRG win more. But a no talent scrub will win more too. This no talent scrub makes it into the GSL whereas before the patch he couldn't make it into the GSL. He makes it in and gets owned.
So you see overall winrates will always stabilize at 50% because changes in balance will allow weaker players to make it into the GSL. A better measure of racial balance is to count the number of players in each level of GSL.
While that's true, you have to acknowledge that both are imperfect measurements, since the number of players in GSL:
1). depends on the race distribution among South Korean players, more precisely talented South Korean players
2). is very low (around 10 players per race in a division) compared to the win ratio data
3). fallowed a very conservative and recursive trend for a long time (used to be soooo hard to get kicked out of code S)
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On March 09 2013 20:46 MateShade wrote:
its kind of a shame, after all the ups and downs the game was hitting perfect balance right before zerg became really overpowered, it was only going to get worse as well. I think its safe to say more zerg nerfs were incoming and then we may have actually reached balance
Immediately before the queen patch Zerg had their worst GSL season ever. Only 2 in the ro16 and 0 in the ro8. They only had like 5-6 in the ro32 too. I wouldn't call that hitting perfect balance.. Obviously the queen patch wasn't the right answer but zerg was very weak before the queen patch.
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Also there are seeds.
I think using Match Results is fine. They will not stabilize at 50% as long as new players come in from Code B and old players drop out to Code B where their matches are not counted anymore.
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On March 09 2013 20:48 JJH777 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2013 20:46 MateShade wrote:
its kind of a shame, after all the ups and downs the game was hitting perfect balance right before zerg became really overpowered, it was only going to get worse as well. I think its safe to say more zerg nerfs were incoming and then we may have actually reached balance Immediately before the queen patch Zerg had their worst GSL season ever. Only 2 in the ro16 and 0 in the ro8. They only had like 5-6 in the ro32 too. I wouldn't call that hitting perfect balance.. Obviously the queen patch wasn't the right answer but zerg was very weak before the queen patch.
Unless you judge balance on results from more than 1 tournament.
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It's cause Terran players are more talented of course ! :p
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On March 09 2013 20:53 keglu wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2013 20:48 JJH777 wrote:On March 09 2013 20:46 MateShade wrote:
its kind of a shame, after all the ups and downs the game was hitting perfect balance right before zerg became really overpowered, it was only going to get worse as well. I think its safe to say more zerg nerfs were incoming and then we may have actually reached balance Immediately before the queen patch Zerg had their worst GSL season ever. Only 2 in the ro16 and 0 in the ro8. They only had like 5-6 in the ro32 too. I wouldn't call that hitting perfect balance.. Obviously the queen patch wasn't the right answer but zerg was very weak before the queen patch. Unless you judge balance on results from more than 1 tournament.
The GSL right before that had them doing pretty badly too. DRG won but he had tons of extremely close calls and zerg had the worst overall representation in each round. DRG was pretty much the only zerg doing well in 2012 pre queen patch. I guess Nestea had his IPL4 run but that was just one example and IPL4 was a very bad tournament for zergs overall. It had 4 players in the top 20 and 3 of those players were guaranteed to get top 20 even if they lost every match. Curious was the only zerg who got out of the open bracket. MLGs had DRG doing very well but they were consistently the lowest represented in the top 16s and top 8s. So maybe you are the one with bias and judging results from 1 player? That's even worse than judging from 1 tournament.
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Zerg OP, Protoss Underpowered, gosh really?
Come on, this has been obvious for years, the only person actually believing Protoss was overpowered is IdrA because he felt he should win every game with mass Roaches, even versus Colossus, hence Protoss OP and you get many clueless idiots regurgitating IdrA's baseless opinion.
What can I say, in the end it worked, his race has been ridiculously imbalanced for a long long time, all the while Zergs were still qqing about Protoss. His little endless rant paid off even though it wasn't good for the game, only made the worst race worse and the best race better (yet still, even as a Zerg player, he didn't book any results?)
I don't dislike IdrA, I respect the guy a lot but I hate the role he's played in making the clueless loud idiots amongst us believe Protoss is OP (which it's not) and Zerg is shit (lol, best race since roachbuff by far).
Blizzard failed hard, nothing new there as they've failed with every single one of their franchises for the past few years. The balance in WoL has been laughable, I hope HotS will bring a better game.
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Although not amazing the win rate graph overall is pretty good and reasonable balanced. Although when looking at balance I would think representation and how games are won need to be taken into account. Looking purely just at that graph though, it's not too bad and the balance team have done a pretty decent job overall, especially when they decided to keep tricky to balance mechanics like warp tech, queen inject and mules in the game. Very hard to get an RTS perfectly balanced with such tools in a game I should imagine.
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So it ended where it began.
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On March 09 2013 21:10 JazzNL wrote:
Zerg OP, Protoss Underpowered, gosh really?
Come on, this has been obvious for years, the only person actually believing Protoss was overpowered is IdrA because he felt he should win every game with mass Roaches, even versus Colossus, hence Protoss OP and you get many clueless idiots regurgitating IdrA's baseless opinion.
What can I say, in the end it worked, his race has been ridiculously imbalanced for a long long time, all the while Zergs were still qqing about Protoss. His little endless rant paid off even though it wasn't good for the game, only made the worst race worse and the best race better (yet still, even as a Zerg player, he didn't book any results?)
I don't dislike IdrA, I respect the guy a lot but I hate the role he's played in making the clueless loud idiots amongst us believe Protoss is OP (which it's not) and Zerg is shit (lol, best race since roachbuff by far).
Blizzard failed hard, nothing new there as they've failed with every single one of their franchises for the past few years. The balance in WoL has been laughable, I hope HotS will bring a better game.
You looked at those graphs and this is what you saw? LOL...
User was warned for this post
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France12875 Posts
As expected, the terran domination lasted longer (because of HotS the zerg domination could not last forever) but was less intense.
Kinda sad for the protoss that their race relies that much on all-ins, hard to be consistent with a race like that.
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Awesome graph. Even though Zerg is undeniably the strongest of the 3 in WoL these days I always felt like people forgot how long Terrans completely dominated, thus the series of nerfs. Still wish the answer for the problems hadn't been "nerf Terran stuff and buff Infestor", would have been more interesting if they just made other Zerg units viable in the matchup (see: Hydralisk).
Understandably at the time the thought process was to try and break up deathballs but surely there was a more elegant solution than buffing the Infestor. Let's see how HOTS goes and hope for the best!
edit: An idea for the graph would be to add in any major balance changes that correlate with large shifts in the data.
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Protoss has always been the worst race since BW era. So if you plan to play in the highest level, pick Terran or Zerg. Enough said.
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You are ignoring that many talented people got their career killed because T got nerfed. In terms of numbers the majority of Korean pros were Terran and this remains true (a lot of them are in code A/B now)
So I would argue that T is a little worse of than the graphs would indicated by a few percent
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On March 09 2013 21:59 thezanursic wrote:
You are ignoring that many talented people got their career killed because T got nerfed. In terms of numbers the majority of Korean pros were Terran and this remains true (a lot of them are in code A/B now)
So I would argue that T is a little worse of than the graphs would indicated by a few percent
Based on what? This argument doesn't really make any sense.
The same subjective argument could easily be made to refute it: "Terran OPness created many careers"...
Not that I would agree with a statement like that but it makes as much sense as what you've said here.
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On March 09 2013 21:00 JJH777 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2013 20:53 keglu wrote:On March 09 2013 20:48 JJH777 wrote:On March 09 2013 20:46 MateShade wrote:
its kind of a shame, after all the ups and downs the game was hitting perfect balance right before zerg became really overpowered, it was only going to get worse as well. I think its safe to say more zerg nerfs were incoming and then we may have actually reached balance Immediately before the queen patch Zerg had their worst GSL season ever. Only 2 in the ro16 and 0 in the ro8. They only had like 5-6 in the ro32 too. I wouldn't call that hitting perfect balance.. Obviously the queen patch wasn't the right answer but zerg was very weak before the queen patch. Unless you judge balance on results from more than 1 tournament. The GSL right before that had them doing pretty badly too. DRG won but he had tons of extremely close calls and zerg had the worst overall representation in each round. DRG was pretty much the only zerg doing well in 2012 pre queen patch. I guess Nestea had his IPL4 run but that was just one example and IPL4 was a very bad tournament for zergs overall. It had 4 players in the top 20 and 3 of those players were guaranteed to get top 20 even if they lost every match. Curious was the only zerg who got out of the open bracket. MLGs had DRG doing very well but they were consistently the lowest represented in the top 16s and top 8s. So maybe you are the one with bias and judging results from 1 player? That's even worse than judging from 1 tournament.
Nope, i judging from this, not from one player.
http://i.imgur.com/0fwpyh.png
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Protoss winrate 49.1%, without MC probably the winrate could be 30% xD
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As it is a balance thread it would be nice to see the win rate vs time and the current patch (which would fit on the same axis). I hope that hots will have less win rate swings compared to wings.
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On March 09 2013 20:48 JJH777 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2013 20:46 MateShade wrote:
its kind of a shame, after all the ups and downs the game was hitting perfect balance right before zerg became really overpowered, it was only going to get worse as well. I think its safe to say more zerg nerfs were incoming and then we may have actually reached balance Immediately before the queen patch Zerg had their worst GSL season ever. Only 2 in the ro16 and 0 in the ro8. They only had like 5-6 in the ro32 too. I wouldn't call that hitting perfect balance.. Obviously the queen patch wasn't the right answer but zerg was very weak before the queen patch.
Yes, zerg had their worst season ever. 7 in the ro32, aside from that you are correct.
The season previously was won by zerg (DRG) and leenock came runner up the season before that.
The current imbalance is a result of knee-jerk patches. Protoss were becoming notably underpowered over the course of 6 months prior to this period. Protoss received several buffs (rightly so). this resulted in a saturation of protoss players in the top end of gsl, and zerg suffered for it (except the fact that leenock came 2nd and DRG won the gsl.. 'suffered' is a very harsh word for what really happened...).
In the 6 months before the queen patch, the game was looking more balanced than it had ever been, and then a short drop for zerg happened at the end. There was no evidence to suggest that zerg actually needed any buffs, they went through a relatively short period (2-3 months) where zerg win rates dropped below the other races. And then came the queen buff.. way too quickly and way too unsubstantiated.. and then afterwards another long period of imbalance - similar to protoss - where terran is now the weakest race.
Even though zerg is/was getting nerfed over the past 2 months (rightly so), zerg win rates continue to rise.
This suggests to me that if the queen patch never happened, zerg would have recovered just fine. If the queen patch never happened we would be much closer to balance than what has happened now, which is basically the most imbalance sc2 has seen yet.
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Ohh and in BW you could still overcome balance with skill Flash had a winrate of 75% (if you exclude his first two years of professional BW so thats from 2009 to 2012)
And a lot of people would argue that KESPA's OMAT intentionally made a lot of maps favoring P/Z during that period to stop FlasH from winning everything, but that is a little bit to over the top for me personally.
i am just trying to say that balance works a little differently in BW so it shouldn't be used as a comparison. I do hope that this changes and more ways are introduced into SC2 with which the player can express his skill and undermind balance (I am not saying there are none though)
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On March 09 2013 22:05 ShamW0W wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2013 21:59 thezanursic wrote:
You are ignoring that many talented people got their career killed because T got nerfed. In terms of numbers the majority of Korean pros were Terran and this remains true (a lot of them are in code A/B now)
So I would argue that T is a little worse of than the graphs would indicated by a few percent Based on what? This argument doesn't really make any sense. The same subjective argument could easily be made to refute it: "Terran OPness created many careers"... Not that I would agree with a statement like that but it makes as much sense as what you've said here.
Almost exactly what I was about to say.
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Very nice read.
It is a very good time to stop WoL imo.
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Wow just wow. Orek, your articles/guides/posts never ceases to amaze me. The amount of effort and meticulous dataprocessing gone into this one is truely Ph.D material (okay maybe not - but still)
Keep up the awesome work - and here's for a new start with HotS!
Slightly OT; I kinda enjoy the 'OP'ness certain races experience - it makes it so much better when the 'underdogs' come out on top - alot of protossplayers comes to mind
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On March 09 2013 22:05 ShamW0W wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2013 21:59 thezanursic wrote:
You are ignoring that many talented people got their career killed because T got nerfed. In terms of numbers the majority of Korean pros were Terran and this remains true (a lot of them are in code A/B now)
So I would argue that T is a little worse of than the graphs would indicated by a few percent Based on what? This argument doesn't really make any sense. The same subjective argument could easily be made to refute it: "Terran OPness created many careers"... Not that I would agree with a statement like that but it makes as much sense as what you've said here.
You are ignoring the influx of players at the begining and after terran got resonably balanced T players didn't switch their race because it's a gurantee career killer.
Now if the influx of new players was constant and it weren't an demographic explosion into stagnation you'd be, right.
The race that will be op at HoTs release will have a large representation for a long period of time even after getting balanced, the over-representation won't be as noticable as it was with WOL because a lot of the old skill won't switch regardless of balance, but don't be surprised if you see huge race swings at the beginning of hots and that race staying relatively strong regardless of balance.
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The game was balanced before the ridiculous queen buff.
That destroyed pretty much everything. Also poor Protoss it's really unfortunate they don't QQ enough they've always done the worst since the start.
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On March 09 2013 22:08 archonOOid wrote:
As it is a balance thread it would be nice to see the win rate vs time and the current patch (which would fit on the same axis). I hope that hots will have less win rate swings compared to wings.
I did it for some of the more recent patches (ignoring 1.5.3)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/QbmJYdk.png)
yellow = Observer build time buff, queen buff + overlord buff (1.4.3 balace update, may 2012)
pink = mule nerf and snipe nerf (1.4.3, feb 2012)
black = Protoss upgrade buff and EMP nerf (1.4.2, nov 2011)
white = Unit vision up ramps reduced by 1, immortal range buff, mothership buff, blink nerf, warp prism shield 40->100. Rax build time 65 from 60, blue flame bonus damage 5 down from 10, raven seeker missle buff. NP 7 range from 9, overseer cost buff, contaminate nerf (125 energy up from 75), ulta buff (55 build time down from 70) (1.4.0, sept 2011)
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Nice article. So zerg has been OP for many months now, as everyone knows. Hope that does not continue in Hots.
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On March 09 2013 22:38 nomyx wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2013 22:08 archonOOid wrote:
As it is a balance thread it would be nice to see the win rate vs time and the current patch (which would fit on the same axis). I hope that hots will have less win rate swings compared to wings. I did it for some of the more recent patches (ignoring 1.5.3) yellow = Observer build time buff, queen buff + overlord buff (1.4.3 balace update, may 2012) pink = mule nerf and snipe nerf (1.4.3, feb 2012) black = Protoss upgrade buff and EMP nerf (1.4.2, nov 2011) white = Unit vision up ramps reduced by 1, immortal range buff, mothership buff, blink nerf, warp prism shield 40->100. Rax build time 65 from 60, blue flame bonus damage 5 down from 10, raven seeker missle buff. NP 7 range from 9, overseer cost buff, contaminate nerf (125 energy up from 75), ulta buff (55 build time down from 70) (1.4.0, sept 2011)
The unit vision on ramps was likely the larges thing that helped protoss out. That and better maps that didn't have the ramp to your main hanging out there for anyone to run up. And the immortal range buff, god how that helped out that unit.
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unbelievable how well the game was looking at the 'yellow' mark
I can dig a billion posts from that time saying that the patch is unnecessary and makes no sense, but yeah, whatever, maybe we can randomly get a good balance in hots.
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On March 09 2013 22:47 n0ise wrote:
unbelievable how well the game was looking at the 'yellow' mark
I can dig a billion posts from that time saying that the patch is unnecessary and makes no sense, but yeah, whatever, maybe we can randomly get a good balance in hots.
I often wonder if the queen buff really changed anything or zergs should just have been building 6 queens all along. The range was huge, but they are still brick walls of hitpoints and the extra creep is what really gave everyone a hard time.
But HotS looks way better. Way more back an forth and more abilities to stabilize after taking some damage.
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On March 09 2013 22:47 n0ise wrote:
unbelievable how well the game was looking at the 'yellow' mark
I can dig a billion posts from that time saying that the patch is unnecessary and makes no sense, but yeah, whatever, maybe we can randomly get a good balance in hots.
The game was balanced because occasionally Zerg would lose all their drones to hellions. The rest of the time zerg had an advantage when they didn't lose too much, that's just a silly way to balance a game. The queen and overlord buffs were 100% needed. Any other balance issues needed their own patch (and eventually imo the infestor nerfs did just that).
Regarding protoss, in WoL it seems they lacked a good way to turn player skill into results. If you look at terran, they have a great array of multitasking and apm-intensive tasks which can separate the great players from the good players. Protoss really didn't encourage splitting up the army or much in the way of harrass, and generally we saw protoss winning if their build was unscouted and losing when it was scouted and properly prepared for.
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It is interesting to see the near mirror of Zerg and Protoss in that graph, when one is high, the other is low and so on. I was really unhappy with WoL after that final balance patch and from the looks of that graph it seemed to be near decent at the time up until the patch hit, and after that Zerg became a powerhouse.
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I have a feeling StartaleQ was responsible for a lot of the peak there around S2 for protoss.. Parting, Naniwa and Squirtle all dominating terrans and getting far in the bracket, with Parting and Squirtle not even dropping maps in most series.
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I love how Z and P seem to be mirroring each other almost perfectly, while Terran never ceases to give less than half a fuck.
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On March 09 2013 23:02 Zrana wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2013 22:47 n0ise wrote:
unbelievable how well the game was looking at the 'yellow' mark
I can dig a billion posts from that time saying that the patch is unnecessary and makes no sense, but yeah, whatever, maybe we can randomly get a good balance in hots. The game was balanced because occasionally Zerg would lose all their drones to hellions. The rest of the time zerg had an advantage when they didn't lose too much, that's just a silly way to balance a game. The queen and overlord buffs were 100% needed. Any other balance issues needed their own patch (and eventually imo the infestor nerfs did just that). Regarding protoss, in WoL it seems they lacked a good way to turn player skill into results. If you look at terran, they have a great array of multitasking and apm-intensive tasks which can separate the great players from the good players. Protoss really didn't encourage splitting up the army or much in the way of harrass, and generally we saw protoss winning if their build was unscouted and losing when it was scouted and properly prepared for.
You feel you should be able to defend anything by default, the rest of the world feels you should actively do something to defend it. Every TvP FE vs 1Base is a fucking slaughterfest down to the last SCV/zealot in which the person who micros and reacts better wins. As a guy above me said, Queens already gave so much, the patch was just taking it way too far.
Are we seriously starting to discuss that queens were way too good, and that between overlord's speed and overlord spots on most maps, zerg had perfect scouting at every stage? Sure, you feel it's normal and needed, why wouldn't you.
Infestors had nothing to do with imbalance unless you can't split your units and anticipate the fungals, or if your Blizzard's balance team. It's like making mules mine 10 times more then nerfing marines to balance the game. 100% logic.
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24 of 30 month with terran domination
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Game looked pretty balanced before Queen buff. Makes you wonder why that was implemented. What did Blizzard see in the numbers that led them to the conclusion it was needed.
Terran dominated for a long time, but it wasn't all due to balance. Terran had a stronger tradition of champions from BroodWar, a lot of the current top Koreans grew up watching these guys, so it was natural that a greater share of talented Koreans choosing to play SC2 would choose Terran. And Terran was IMBA for a while as well.
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On March 09 2013 23:42 mlspmatt wrote:
Game looked pretty balanced before Queen buff. Makes you wonder why that was implemented. What did Blizzard see in the numbers that led them to the conclusion it was needed.
Terran dominated for a long time, but it wasn't all due to balance. Terran had a stronger tradition of champions from BroodWar, a lot of the current top Koreans grew up watching these guys, so it was natural that a greater share of talented Koreans choosing to play SC2 would choose Terran. And Terran was IMBA for a while as well.
Are we seriously back to the "Terran has better players" nonsense again?
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On March 09 2013 23:35 n0ise wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2013 23:02 Zrana wrote:On March 09 2013 22:47 n0ise wrote:
unbelievable how well the game was looking at the 'yellow' mark
I can dig a billion posts from that time saying that the patch is unnecessary and makes no sense, but yeah, whatever, maybe we can randomly get a good balance in hots. The game was balanced because occasionally Zerg would lose all their drones to hellions. The rest of the time zerg had an advantage when they didn't lose too much, that's just a silly way to balance a game. The queen and overlord buffs were 100% needed. Any other balance issues needed their own patch (and eventually imo the infestor nerfs did just that). Regarding protoss, in WoL it seems they lacked a good way to turn player skill into results. If you look at terran, they have a great array of multitasking and apm-intensive tasks which can separate the great players from the good players. Protoss really didn't encourage splitting up the army or much in the way of harrass, and generally we saw protoss winning if their build was unscouted and losing when it was scouted and properly prepared for. You feel you should be able to defend anything by default, the rest of the world feels you should actively do something to defend it. Every TvP FE vs 1Base is a fucking slaughterfest down to the last SCV/zealot in which the person who micros and reacts better wins. As a guy above me said, Queens already gave so much, the patch was just taking it way too far. Are we seriously starting to discuss that queens were way too good, and that between overlord's speed and overlord spots on most maps, zerg had perfect scouting at every stage? Sure, you feel it's normal and needed, why wouldn't you. Infestors had nothing to do with imbalance unless you can't split your units and anticipate the fungals, or if your Blizzard's balance team. It's like making mules mine 10 times more then nerfing marines to balance the game. 100% logic.
Now you're just exaggerating.
Even today hellions are effective, and zerg always has to react with lings, roaches or extra queens. Even ST_Life, who is by far the best zerg player we've ever seen still loses drones and lings.
Free scouting at all stages of the game? Maybe learn where zerg parks their overlords and the times they want to scout and get some marines ready? Or get a single viking?
As to your comments about the infestor, i was referring to the usage of fungals and ITs in late-game scenarios (i.e. killing vikings for a broodlord-based army).
Anyway this discussion is pointless with HotS a few days away.
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On March 09 2013 23:02 Zrana wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2013 22:47 n0ise wrote:
unbelievable how well the game was looking at the 'yellow' mark
I can dig a billion posts from that time saying that the patch is unnecessary and makes no sense, but yeah, whatever, maybe we can randomly get a good balance in hots. The game was balanced because occasionally Zerg would lose all their drones to hellions. The rest of the time zerg had an advantage when they didn't lose too much, that's just a silly way to balance a game. The queen and overlord buffs were 100% needed. Any other balance issues needed their own patch (and eventually imo the infestor nerfs did just that).Regarding protoss, in WoL it seems they lacked a good way to turn player skill into results. If you look at terran, they have a great array of multitasking and apm-intensive tasks which can separate the great players from the good players. Protoss really didn't encourage splitting up the army or much in the way of harrass, and generally we saw protoss winning if their build was unscouted and losing when it was scouted and properly prepared for.
looooooooooooooooool
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On March 10 2013 00:10 Assirra wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2013 23:42 mlspmatt wrote:
Game looked pretty balanced before Queen buff. Makes you wonder why that was implemented. What did Blizzard see in the numbers that led them to the conclusion it was needed.
Terran dominated for a long time, but it wasn't all due to balance. Terran had a stronger tradition of champions from BroodWar, a lot of the current top Koreans grew up watching these guys, so it was natural that a greater share of talented Koreans choosing to play SC2 would choose Terran. And Terran was IMBA for a while as well. Are we seriously back to the "Terran has better players" nonsense again?
Well, Protoss and Zerg dominate in Europe. I assumed it was because they have better Protoss and Zergs. But I guess your argument is that Terran is underpowered?
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So this is proof we protoss are OP right 
But in all honesty good report, similar to what my thoughts have been for awhile,thanks for taking the time to do this
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On March 10 2013 00:02 monkybone wrote:ZvT was really bad before the queen buff actually. 45% is not okay. But they obviously overdid it. 57% and climbing. Actually, in the end it was around 65% in 2013. That's what the GSL stats says. Also, funny how the white line shows a HUGE improvement in protoss results. Was it the immortal change for Terran all ins?
It wasn't 45%, more like 47% percent. You are not going to get much better than that. Hell, there was a time showing a 39% winrate and people still posted l2p to terrans.
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On March 10 2013 00:19 Zrana wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2013 23:35 n0ise wrote:On March 09 2013 23:02 Zrana wrote:On March 09 2013 22:47 n0ise wrote:
unbelievable how well the game was looking at the 'yellow' mark
I can dig a billion posts from that time saying that the patch is unnecessary and makes no sense, but yeah, whatever, maybe we can randomly get a good balance in hots. The game was balanced because occasionally Zerg would lose all their drones to hellions. The rest of the time zerg had an advantage when they didn't lose too much, that's just a silly way to balance a game. The queen and overlord buffs were 100% needed. Any other balance issues needed their own patch (and eventually imo the infestor nerfs did just that). Regarding protoss, in WoL it seems they lacked a good way to turn player skill into results. If you look at terran, they have a great array of multitasking and apm-intensive tasks which can separate the great players from the good players. Protoss really didn't encourage splitting up the army or much in the way of harrass, and generally we saw protoss winning if their build was unscouted and losing when it was scouted and properly prepared for. You feel you should be able to defend anything by default, the rest of the world feels you should actively do something to defend it. Every TvP FE vs 1Base is a fucking slaughterfest down to the last SCV/zealot in which the person who micros and reacts better wins. As a guy above me said, Queens already gave so much, the patch was just taking it way too far. Are we seriously starting to discuss that queens were way too good, and that between overlord's speed and overlord spots on most maps, zerg had perfect scouting at every stage? Sure, you feel it's normal and needed, why wouldn't you. Infestors had nothing to do with imbalance unless you can't split your units and anticipate the fungals, or if your Blizzard's balance team. It's like making mules mine 10 times more then nerfing marines to balance the game. 100% logic. Now you're just exaggerating. Even today hellions are effective, and zerg always has to react with lings, roaches or extra queens. Even ST_Life, who is by far the best zerg player we've ever seen still loses drones and lings. Free scouting at all stages of the game? Maybe learn where zerg parks their overlords and the times they want to scout and get some marines ready? Or get a single viking? As to your comments about the infestor, i was referring to the usage of fungals and ITs in late-game scenarios (i.e. killing vikings for a broodlord-based army). Anyway this discussion is pointless with HotS a few days away.
How am I exaggerating? Yes, hellions are still good, queens are better. They give too much, I don't even know why we're talking about it. Give Macro OR give Defense OR give Map Presence OR give Creep, not all.
Make a viking? How about if I have free scouting of your choke and geysers until you hit Lair timing? That cool? Terran scouting since beta is "try to see the X timing, see how many Y he makes and deduce something". Zerg scouting is an Overlord on top of Cloud Kingdom choke, and another on the side of the main.
Gimme a break. As a guy above posted, this discussion is pointless, yes.
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Interesting, so the immortal-warp prism-buff and the queen buff had the biggest impacts on the game.
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Nice OP, thanks for your work
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On March 09 2013 23:40 xuanzue wrote:
24 of 30 month with terran domination
I see them dominating at 4 points on the graph. Do you have a comprehension problem or just being a dick ?
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On March 10 2013 01:17 n0ise wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 00:19 Zrana wrote:On March 09 2013 23:35 n0ise wrote:On March 09 2013 23:02 Zrana wrote:On March 09 2013 22:47 n0ise wrote:
unbelievable how well the game was looking at the 'yellow' mark
I can dig a billion posts from that time saying that the patch is unnecessary and makes no sense, but yeah, whatever, maybe we can randomly get a good balance in hots. The game was balanced because occasionally Zerg would lose all their drones to hellions. The rest of the time zerg had an advantage when they didn't lose too much, that's just a silly way to balance a game. The queen and overlord buffs were 100% needed. Any other balance issues needed their own patch (and eventually imo the infestor nerfs did just that). Regarding protoss, in WoL it seems they lacked a good way to turn player skill into results. If you look at terran, they have a great array of multitasking and apm-intensive tasks which can separate the great players from the good players. Protoss really didn't encourage splitting up the army or much in the way of harrass, and generally we saw protoss winning if their build was unscouted and losing when it was scouted and properly prepared for. You feel you should be able to defend anything by default, the rest of the world feels you should actively do something to defend it. Every TvP FE vs 1Base is a fucking slaughterfest down to the last SCV/zealot in which the person who micros and reacts better wins. As a guy above me said, Queens already gave so much, the patch was just taking it way too far. Are we seriously starting to discuss that queens were way too good, and that between overlord's speed and overlord spots on most maps, zerg had perfect scouting at every stage? Sure, you feel it's normal and needed, why wouldn't you. Infestors had nothing to do with imbalance unless you can't split your units and anticipate the fungals, or if your Blizzard's balance team. It's like making mules mine 10 times more then nerfing marines to balance the game. 100% logic. Now you're just exaggerating. Even today hellions are effective, and zerg always has to react with lings, roaches or extra queens. Even ST_Life, who is by far the best zerg player we've ever seen still loses drones and lings. Free scouting at all stages of the game? Maybe learn where zerg parks their overlords and the times they want to scout and get some marines ready? Or get a single viking? As to your comments about the infestor, i was referring to the usage of fungals and ITs in late-game scenarios (i.e. killing vikings for a broodlord-based army). Anyway this discussion is pointless with HotS a few days away. How am I exaggerating? Yes, hellions are still good, queens are better. They give too much, I don't even know why we're talking about it. Give Macro OR give Defense OR give Map Presence OR give Creep, not all. Make a viking? How about if I have free scouting of your choke and geysers until you hit Lair timing? That cool? Terran scouting since beta is "try to see the X timing, see how many Y he makes and deduce something". Zerg scouting is an Overlord on top of Cloud Kingdom choke, and another on the side of the main. Gimme a break. As a guy above posted, this discussion is pointless, yes.
I think you're ignoring asymmetrical balance. Queens do a lot of roles but this doesn't necessarily translate into zerg being overpowered (note im not saying zerg wasnt op in late wol but arguing vs queen range being the reason for it).
1. Queens do not give map presence
2. Creep being on queens is a non-issue as spreading creep a different way would still have the same result. Also the choice between inject and creep tumour and transfuse arguably weakens the queen before you have many out
3. Queens are zerg's only mobile anti-air until hydras (lol) or spire. Zerg really needs the queen to be competitve.
4. The queen range change is great for ZvZ and ZvP. The fact that terran needed more early game harrass options has been addressed in HotS.
5. Before the queen range and overlord speed buffs the matchups were balanced only because often zergs just lost to a bunch of hellions getting a lucky shot or being unable to scout the opponent's tech at all and dying to some kind of timing. This is not good design, not fun to play or watch. You can still hide tech from zergs or mislead their scouting info, it just requires more thought.
Finally i think the problems with WoL balance stemmed partially from the zerg macro mechanic which meant that economic losses or lack of losses in the early game quickly steamrolled in one way or the other for zerg. In hindsight if i could redesign that patch i would keep the queen range and overlord speed in but reduce the strength of larva inject.
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On March 09 2013 23:40 xuanzue wrote:
24 of 30 month with terran domination
With 10 points out of 17 with either protoss or zerg having higher winrate than terran, let me question your maths =D
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its almost like in math class with the line of best fit (terran), and then you got the 2 lines that will never be equal (zerg and protoss). lol
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So basically protoss was the weakest race throughout GSL and in the brief period of protoss dominance, which was less severe than periods of terran or zerg dominance, people complained far harder than any other period. Oh well, HOTS is out at a good time when things are really growing stale. I guess when you look at it in aggregate the game was REALLY closely balanced, definitely closer than Brood War typically was.
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On March 10 2013 01:39 Zrana wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 01:17 n0ise wrote:On March 10 2013 00:19 Zrana wrote:On March 09 2013 23:35 n0ise wrote:On March 09 2013 23:02 Zrana wrote:On March 09 2013 22:47 n0ise wrote:
unbelievable how well the game was looking at the 'yellow' mark
I can dig a billion posts from that time saying that the patch is unnecessary and makes no sense, but yeah, whatever, maybe we can randomly get a good balance in hots. The game was balanced because occasionally Zerg would lose all their drones to hellions. The rest of the time zerg had an advantage when they didn't lose too much, that's just a silly way to balance a game. The queen and overlord buffs were 100% needed. Any other balance issues needed their own patch (and eventually imo the infestor nerfs did just that). Regarding protoss, in WoL it seems they lacked a good way to turn player skill into results. If you look at terran, they have a great array of multitasking and apm-intensive tasks which can separate the great players from the good players. Protoss really didn't encourage splitting up the army or much in the way of harrass, and generally we saw protoss winning if their build was unscouted and losing when it was scouted and properly prepared for. You feel you should be able to defend anything by default, the rest of the world feels you should actively do something to defend it. Every TvP FE vs 1Base is a fucking slaughterfest down to the last SCV/zealot in which the person who micros and reacts better wins. As a guy above me said, Queens already gave so much, the patch was just taking it way too far. Are we seriously starting to discuss that queens were way too good, and that between overlord's speed and overlord spots on most maps, zerg had perfect scouting at every stage? Sure, you feel it's normal and needed, why wouldn't you. Infestors had nothing to do with imbalance unless you can't split your units and anticipate the fungals, or if your Blizzard's balance team. It's like making mules mine 10 times more then nerfing marines to balance the game. 100% logic. Now you're just exaggerating. Even today hellions are effective, and zerg always has to react with lings, roaches or extra queens. Even ST_Life, who is by far the best zerg player we've ever seen still loses drones and lings. Free scouting at all stages of the game? Maybe learn where zerg parks their overlords and the times they want to scout and get some marines ready? Or get a single viking? As to your comments about the infestor, i was referring to the usage of fungals and ITs in late-game scenarios (i.e. killing vikings for a broodlord-based army). Anyway this discussion is pointless with HotS a few days away. How am I exaggerating? Yes, hellions are still good, queens are better. They give too much, I don't even know why we're talking about it. Give Macro OR give Defense OR give Map Presence OR give Creep, not all. Make a viking? How about if I have free scouting of your choke and geysers until you hit Lair timing? That cool? Terran scouting since beta is "try to see the X timing, see how many Y he makes and deduce something". Zerg scouting is an Overlord on top of Cloud Kingdom choke, and another on the side of the main. Gimme a break. As a guy above posted, this discussion is pointless, yes. I think you're ignoring asymmetrical balance. Queens do a lot of roles but this doesn't necessarily translate into zerg being overpowered (note im not saying zerg wasnt op in late wol but arguing vs queen range being the reason for it). 1. Queens do not give map presence 2. Creep being on queens is a non-issue as spreading creep a different way would still have the same result. Also the choice between inject and creep tumour and transfuse arguably weakens the queen before you have many out 3. Queens are zerg's only mobile anti-air until hydras (lol) or spire. Zerg really needs the queen to be competitve. 4. The queen range change is great for ZvZ and ZvP. The fact that terran needed more early game harrass options has been addressed in HotS. 5. Before the queen range and overlord speed buffs the matchups were balanced only because often zergs just lost to a bunch of hellions getting a lucky shot or being unable to scout the opponent's tech at all and dying to some kind of timing. This is not good design, not fun to play or watch. You can still hide tech from zergs or mislead their scouting info, it just requires more thought. Finally i think the problems with WoL balance stemmed partially from the zerg macro mechanic which meant that economic losses or lack of losses in the early game quickly steamrolled in one way or the other for zerg. In hindsight if i could redesign that patch i would keep the queen range and overlord speed in but reduce the strength of larva inject.
Your point 5, I totally disagree with you, prequeen buff TvZ remains by miles my favorite WoL mu. It was all about low eco game with fights during all the game.
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u do amazing articles/threads
thanks for the entertaining read. keep up the good work!
kinda makes me happy in a weird way to see how much my race actually did struggle statistically, its never a good thing for your race to be the weakest, but when its also the race that is the most easily called OP or absurd because of the way its designed, then its nice to see that all the outrage is simply biased opinion, and not statistical fact.
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Good job, this confirms many of my personal thoughts on balance. Have you posted this on b.net?
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Pre-Queen buff was the best time ever for TvZ, easily.
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United States7483 Posts
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On March 10 2013 02:17 Emzeeshady wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 02:15 IAmMajiC wrote:
Pre-Queen buff was the best time ever for TvZ, easily. For Terrans... -_-
Numbers prove otherwise. For several months in 2012 prior to the queen patch, the matchup was very even both internationally and in Korea, with Zergs actually holding a small edge in win rates in Korea. The patch changed what had become a well balanced, highly entertaining matchup into an extremely predictable, poorly balanced mess.
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On March 10 2013 02:21 forsooth wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 02:17 Emzeeshady wrote:On March 10 2013 02:15 IAmMajiC wrote:
Pre-Queen buff was the best time ever for TvZ, easily. For Terrans... -_- Numbers prove otherwise. For several months in 2012 prior to the queen patch, the matchup was very even both internationally and in Korea, with Zergs actually holding a small edge in win rates in Korea. The patch changed what had become a well balanced, highly entertaining matchup into an extremely predictable, poorly balanced mess.
Yeah nothing like the days of tank pushes under the natural cliff of TDA, or bad terrans beating zergs like Leenock by walking a few hellions into the incredibly open natural of Dual Sight.
Balanced and highly entertaining. For Terrans.
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Zergs is good roller coaster.
Protoss had just one good time.
Terran didn't suffer from constants nerfs.
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On March 10 2013 02:17 Emzeeshady wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 02:15 IAmMajiC wrote:
Pre-Queen buff was the best time ever for TvZ, easily. For Terrans... -_-
Pre Queen buff, 50/50 winrate
Post queen buff and since then 37/63
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Pretty much everything points out that Protoss was the worst race in WOL. By a fair amount.
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On March 10 2013 02:24 Emzeeshady wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 02:21 forsooth wrote:On March 10 2013 02:17 Emzeeshady wrote:On March 10 2013 02:15 IAmMajiC wrote:
Pre-Queen buff was the best time ever for TvZ, easily. For Terrans... -_- Numbers prove otherwise. For several months in 2012 prior to the queen patch, the matchup was very even both internationally and in Korea, with Zergs actually holding a small edge in win rates in Korea. The patch changed what had become a well balanced, highly entertaining matchup into an extremely predictable, poorly balanced mess. There were 0 Zergs in the Code S Quarters And people complain about only having two Terrans in the quarters... -_- Also, most of the best TvZ matches were after the queen buff. The matchup was not only predictable to the point of annoyance but Zergs would also die to random Hellion runbys in half of the games because Queens were not good enough to open with.
After the queen buff, the majority of TvZ became nr10 into 15 minute brood lord/infestor into Zerg wins almost every time. It doesn't get any more predictable than that. I could not possibly disagree with you any more strongly that the best of TvZ has been in this insanely dull era of passive, defensive play.
Here's your good matchup:
+ Show Spoiler +
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On March 10 2013 02:26 Zrana wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 02:21 forsooth wrote:On March 10 2013 02:17 Emzeeshady wrote:On March 10 2013 02:15 IAmMajiC wrote:
Pre-Queen buff was the best time ever for TvZ, easily. For Terrans... -_- Numbers prove otherwise. For several months in 2012 prior to the queen patch, the matchup was very even both internationally and in Korea, with Zergs actually holding a small edge in win rates in Korea. The patch changed what had become a well balanced, highly entertaining matchup into an extremely predictable, poorly balanced mess. Yeah nothing like the days of tank pushes under the natural cliff of TDA, or bad terrans beating zergs like Leenock by walking a few hellions into the incredibly open natural of Dual Sight. Balanced and highly entertaining. For Terrans.
Just imagine mapmakers wouldn't have tried to create perfectly balanced maps in all matchups or maps that should help Zerg, ending up increasing the power of Bio and Hellions even more.
Everyone made mistakes that time and it caused Blizzard to create mistakes that will forever be bound to this game unless they realize that these changes are not longer needed.
But TvZ was really highly enjoyable on both sides for me pre-queen-messup.
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On March 10 2013 02:42 BernabusStarcraft2 wrote:
Pretty much everything points out that Protoss was the worst race in WOL. By a fair amount.
Protoss didn't win a major tournament for like ~2years in BW.
Nobody whined about balance. In SC2 a race dominates for 4-5 months and it all goes bad.
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On March 10 2013 02:24 Emzeeshady wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 02:21 forsooth wrote:On March 10 2013 02:17 Emzeeshady wrote:On March 10 2013 02:15 IAmMajiC wrote:
Pre-Queen buff was the best time ever for TvZ, easily. For Terrans... -_- Numbers prove otherwise. For several months in 2012 prior to the queen patch, the matchup was very even both internationally and in Korea, with Zergs actually holding a small edge in win rates in Korea. The patch changed what had become a well balanced, highly entertaining matchup into an extremely predictable, poorly balanced mess. There were 0 Zergs in the Code S Quarters And people complain about only having two Terrans in the quarters... -_- Also, most of the best TvZ matches were after the queen buff. The matchup was not only predictable to the point of annoyance but Zergs would also die to random Hellion runbys in half of the games because Queens were not good enough to open with.
Eh, wut. If you didn't defend, sure.
As far as WoL ZvT balance goes, though, apart from Infestors, the whole thing boils down to larvae. In the past, you needed larvae to defend early pushes and to shoo off the contain from Reactor Hellion Expand quickly. Zerg players didn't like it. I vividly remember the endless inanity of "making Roaches is unacceptable because it means we can't drone/tech optimally". I am serious. The damage IdrA and Artosis have done to Zerg players' mindset cannot be underestimated.
The issue is that, as we all have (to our boredom) noticed over the last half a year, the Zerg economy, if unhindered, is broken. The ability to use all your production slots on nothing but economy is way too good to exist, except for the fact that in the past you could force Zerg to use larvae for defense. This meant both sides made army, econ and teched a bit. It was fair (though understandably felt bad for Z because they were literally being damaged).
Also, the only really boring part about Reactor Hellion was that T went for it almost always. The opener itself played out entertainingly enough: both sides had high stakes (immediate, long-lasting loss of map control for Terran, severe economic damage or outright game loss for Zerg) and there was lots of action happening. Terrans were busy trying to snipe tumors, Z was busy trying to sneak them past the Hellions, players had to watch their Queens/Hellions constantly to prevent a Hellion/Speedling snipe, respectively, and so forth. The most important thing of all, though, was that it led to an actual midgame.
And from here we get to the cascade effect the Queendralisk buff had. The early game implications are clear for all to see. But the ripple effects? Dear god. First, creep spread easily goes out of control, where spreading it was an effort before. The better economy allows for a very early swell of Infestors, which helps make Zerg safe and essentially kills the midgame, from which we get into quick, fast, Infestor/T3 comp with the accompanying tech switches. The sheer scale of the change is perhaps best realized when one stops to consider that in the past a 17 minute Hive was risky and greedy. Such a far cry from our current, absurdly safe 12 minute Hive timings, isn't it? That's all because Z had to invest into a midgame to fight off the Terran midgame (which they could get to due to less creep and slower Zerg development). And damn, was that midgame ever good.
The slower Hive timings also made the late game more bearable - Terran had more time to get their infrastructure up to contend with Zerg's endgame composition. The fundamental character of it was then, and still is expensive, inflexible Terran infrastructure making very narrow anti-1-unit counters that have no other use vs. a flexible Zerg infrastructure making little but threats.
The greatest casualty of the Queendralisk patch hasn't been balance, though - a certain amount of imbalance you can work around and it is even entertaining for some. The greatest casualties have been fun (the game has become dull), the idea that the game makes any kind of sense (the kind of imbalance and it's degree make the games feel just plain stupid). I also can't tell good and bad Zergs apart anymore. In the past, great creep spread was an achievement. There were brilliant holds, good game sense, great flanks. Mutas hadn't been eclipsed so badly and so were an actual (not just stubbornly stylistic) option. Now it's the same dull monotony where it feels like the sheer, absurd, dominant power of some key units does more work than the player.
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Really nice writeup. I would love to see someone do a season by season analysis with the map pool in mind. WoL was a horribly balanced game. That's even more obvious in hind sight. I think a lot of absolutely incompetent map design with free airspace has a lot to do with terrible Toss winrates and Terran's 2011 strength.
For my mind the game looked the best balanced during the "blinks" of liberty stage.
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On March 10 2013 03:10 Coffee Zombie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 02:24 Emzeeshady wrote:On March 10 2013 02:21 forsooth wrote:On March 10 2013 02:17 Emzeeshady wrote:On March 10 2013 02:15 IAmMajiC wrote:
Pre-Queen buff was the best time ever for TvZ, easily. For Terrans... -_- Numbers prove otherwise. For several months in 2012 prior to the queen patch, the matchup was very even both internationally and in Korea, with Zergs actually holding a small edge in win rates in Korea. The patch changed what had become a well balanced, highly entertaining matchup into an extremely predictable, poorly balanced mess. There were 0 Zergs in the Code S Quarters And people complain about only having two Terrans in the quarters... -_- Also, most of the best TvZ matches were after the queen buff. The matchup was not only predictable to the point of annoyance but Zergs would also die to random Hellion runbys in half of the games because Queens were not good enough to open with. Eh, wut. If you didn't defend, sure. As far as WoL ZvT balance goes, though, apart from Infestors, the whole thing boils down to larvae. In the past, you needed larvae to defend early pushes and to shoo off the contain from Reactor Hellion Expand quickly. Zerg players didn't like it. I vividly remember the endless inanity of "making Roaches is unacceptable because it means we can't drone/tech optimally". I am serious. The damage IdrA and Artosis have done to Zerg players' mindset cannot be underestimated. The issue is that, as we all have (to our boredom) noticed over the last half a year, the Zerg economy, if unhindered, is broken. The ability to use all your production slots on nothing but economy is way too good to exist, except for the fact that in the past you could force Zerg to use larvae for defense. This meant both sides made army, econ and teched a bit. It was fair (though understandably felt bad for Z because they were literally being damaged). Also, the only really boring part about Reactor Hellion was that T went for it almost always. The opener itself played out entertainingly enough: both sides had high stakes (immediate, long-lasting loss of map control for Terran, severe economic damage or outright game loss for Zerg) and there was lots of action happening. Terrans were busy trying to snipe tumors, Z was busy trying to sneak them past the Hellions, players had to watch their Queens/Hellions constantly to prevent a Hellion/Speedling snipe, respectively, and so forth. The most important thing of all, though, was that it led to an actual midgame. And from here we get to the cascade effect the Queendralisk buff had. The early game implications are clear for all to see. But the ripple effects? Dear god. First, creep spread easily goes out of control, where spreading it was an effort before. The better economy allows for a very early swell of Infestors, which helps make Zerg safe and essentially kills the midgame, from which we get into quick, fast, Infestor/T3 comp with the accompanying tech switches. The sheer scale of the change is perhaps best realized when one stops to consider that in the past a 17 minute Hive was risky and greedy. Such a far cry from our current, absurdly safe 12 minute Hive timings, isn't it? That's all because Z had to invest into a midgame to fight off the Terran midgame (which they could get to due to less creep and slower Zerg development). And damn, was that midgame ever good. The slower Hive timings also made the late game more bearable - Terran had more time to get their infrastructure up to contend with Zerg's endgame composition. The fundamental character of it was then, and still is expensive, inflexible Terran infrastructure making very narrow anti-1-unit counters that have no other use vs. a flexible Zerg infrastructure making little but threats. The greatest casualty of the Queendralisk patch hasn't been balance, though - a certain amount of imbalance you can work around and it is even entertaining for some. The greatest casualties have been fun (the game has become dull), the idea that the game makes any kind of sense (the kind of imbalance and it's degree make the games feel just plain stupid). I also can't tell good and bad Zergs apart anymore. In the past, great creep spread was an achievement. There were brilliant holds, good game sense, great flanks. Mutas hadn't been eclipsed so badly and so were an actual (not just stubbornly stylistic) option. Now it's the same dull monotony where it feels like the sheer, absurd, dominant power of some key units does more work than the player.
Exactly.
The disappointing legacy for WoL is that Blizzard screwed up the balance (and interesting play) a year ago, and then didn't bother fixing it because of an expansion.
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Wonderful, an entire thread devolving into to the final balance whine of WoL. You'd think after the hundreds of other threads, the thousands of hours spent arguing the exact same points over and over and over and over again, the fact that WoL will never be played competitively again might mark the futility of rehashing this.
But no, apparently every single SC2 thread on TL has to be dragged through the mud before people are remotely satisfied.
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On May 15 2012 03:58 Coffee Zombie wrote:Just leaving this here because people are visual thinkers (and my paint skills rock, obviously). The overkill on the Queen change (with regard to the Hellion contain anyway) doesn't come from reach, but rather area control. This is the effect that makes Marines good in larger numbers and good picking up workers and whatnot even though they're slow and don't deal as much damage as a zealot or anything. Things with reach or a fast move speed control territory by their mere presence. When this area is big (and prone to overlap, such as on chokes), bad things happen and stuff dies alarmingly quickly. In old patch that area control would be provided by a spine crawler inching forward slowly. Little risk to either side, but a very effective speedbump. Now? Queens are more mobile and frankly just control much more area (and make creep). This is the scary thing about it. They're now pretty much Roaches that shoot air, don't cost larva and can't be mass-manufactured... At least they ought to sanitize early ZvZ, can't find much else good about them myself. FWIW, I play bug things (like T as well, but bugs just work more naturally) and think they're in a better spot than Terran - were before the patch too. Ovie speed is nice, rest of patch is madness. The area control graphic thing also helps to show just what kinds of dynamics were at work with the EMP nerf too. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/7Zbz3.png)
Posting the pic here again because people are visual thinkers.
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On March 10 2013 04:35 Coffee Zombie wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2012 03:58 Coffee Zombie wrote:Just leaving this here because people are visual thinkers (and my paint skills rock, obviously). The overkill on the Queen change (with regard to the Hellion contain anyway) doesn't come from reach, but rather area control. This is the effect that makes Marines good in larger numbers and good picking up workers and whatnot even though they're slow and don't deal as much damage as a zealot or anything. Things with reach or a fast move speed control territory by their mere presence. When this area is big (and prone to overlap, such as on chokes), bad things happen and stuff dies alarmingly quickly. In old patch that area control would be provided by a spine crawler inching forward slowly. Little risk to either side, but a very effective speedbump. Now? Queens are more mobile and frankly just control much more area (and make creep). This is the scary thing about it. They're now pretty much Roaches that shoot air, don't cost larva and can't be mass-manufactured... At least they ought to sanitize early ZvZ, can't find much else good about them myself. FWIW, I play bug things (like T as well, but bugs just work more naturally) and think they're in a better spot than Terran - were before the patch too. Ovie speed is nice, rest of patch is madness. The area control graphic thing also helps to show just what kinds of dynamics were at work with the EMP nerf too. Posting the pic here again because people are visual thinkers.
You know, even MS Paint has a Fill tool.
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On March 10 2013 02:45 forsooth wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 02:24 Emzeeshady wrote:On March 10 2013 02:21 forsooth wrote:On March 10 2013 02:17 Emzeeshady wrote:On March 10 2013 02:15 IAmMajiC wrote:
Pre-Queen buff was the best time ever for TvZ, easily. For Terrans... -_- Numbers prove otherwise. For several months in 2012 prior to the queen patch, the matchup was very even both internationally and in Korea, with Zergs actually holding a small edge in win rates in Korea. The patch changed what had become a well balanced, highly entertaining matchup into an extremely predictable, poorly balanced mess. There were 0 Zergs in the Code S Quarters And people complain about only having two Terrans in the quarters... -_- Also, most of the best TvZ matches were after the queen buff. The matchup was not only predictable to the point of annoyance but Zergs would also die to random Hellion runbys in half of the games because Queens were not good enough to open with. After the queen buff, the majority of TvZ became nr10 into 15 minute brood lord/infestor into Zerg wins almost every time. It doesn't get any more predictable than that. I could not possibly disagree with you any more strongly that the best of TvZ has been in this insanely dull era of passive, defensive play. Here's your good matchup: + Show Spoiler +
I'm not sure that 2013 gsl as a sample is really telling us anything.
I thought last night's match was outstanding for a finals. It was dramatic, creative, and only during the first game was I disappointed that I was watching a zvz.
Buuut I am a protoss player, and here's to seeing more protoss success in the gsl, eh?
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Honestly, I've always felt like there was a harsh bias against protoss, throughout WOL. It think some of it comes from the wol beta when protoss was completely broken. Bias Overwhelming!
If you look at the nerfs protoss has had in WOL (after beta), many of them are severe. Forge, gateway, warp, even pylons, storm, blink, void rays, all got heavy nerfs. All we heard from the community (even protoss players) was "it's fine."
Obviously protoss has had some nice buffs as well. But Zerg nor Terran has had their core units, and buildings nerfed the way protoss has. These nerfs had countless trickle down effects. The goal of most of these nerfs was to weaken protoss rushes, but they weakened protoss ALL GAME, and weakened protoss's ability to defend rushes.
Which is why I feel protoss is bad against zerg in the late game, and almost forced to all in before hive. But even those allin's are a coin flip. Protoss is so nonthreatening in the early game, zerg is able to max before protoss with more cost effective units, better mobility and vision all game, while being ahead on bases and building up a bank. If you ask zerg players about it, they actually believe it's acceptable balance wise. It is what happens when you nerf a races core production, buildings, units, and it is what happens when it's perfectly okay to be negative towards protoss but not zerg. It is what happens when zergs macro mechanic (the queen) is strong enough to deny almost any form of early protoss harass or pressure. All in, or don't bother, because even though zerg has made no investment into scouting or defense, they know exactly what you have (while you are blind) and they can produce an army superior to yours before you can cross the map.
Think about the buffs protoss received, they were reluctantly put in only after months of protoss being bashed in broken matchups. 1/1/1, mass muta, protoss got smashed by these for a long time. The sad thing is, they are still insanely strong even after protoss was buffed to specifically address them. I mean think about it, they had to give protoss an early game hero unit (the momma core) just to keep protoss on equal footing in HOTS. That in itself is very telling.
Overall, I feel anyone that points out or posts analysis of terran or zerg being too strong, or of protoss being to weak, can expect to be bashed, and marginalized. It has been perfectly acceptable for zerg players to whine about zerg being to weak, even while zerg is winning lots of major events.
But even when protoss has graph after graph, tons of stats, consistently showing protoss is the weakest race. When late game ZvP is broken in favor of Zerg, it is still more acceptable for a zerg to complain about sentry immortal all ins, than a protoss to complain about broodlord infestor, or mass muta.
Its blatantly obvious that protoss was the worst race of WOL, but if you look through balance discussions over the last years, you'll see protoss players getting bashed and marginalized for making their arguments backed with numbers, while you have terrans and zergs complaining nonstop and actually having lots of support from pro's, while the numbers directly oppose their conclusions.
It's fine for zergs to say "you need to experiment more" and such when protoss can't find an answer to zerg. Players like Naniwa stated that "I know what the zerg is going to do before the game starts, and I just can't stop it" (referring to the fast 3 base into hive play.) He got bashed for saying it. But the whole year of 2011 when zergs where going roach hydra corrupter against protoss, and zerg players refused to innovate, where was the criticism they deserved?
Why is there such a strong bias against protoss? I honestly feel like the bias against protoss in the community has actually influenced a lot of the balance decisions blizzard made. The stigma of protoss OP, and zerg UP, that existed in WOL BETA, persisted throughout the history of WOL, even though it was the opposite of the truth.
You may think I'm just an idiot at this point, but I want you to think about some things in reverse. We've seen warp gates, zealot build time, pylon radius, forge build time, amulet removed, void rays nerfed, without protoss players making much of a fuss about it.
Now imagine if some one suggested nerfing larva inject, ling build time, creep spread, evolution chamber, remove pathogen glands, reducing muta dmg. Zergs would go absolutely ape shit on the forums if you suggested any of these. In fact creep spread nerf was suggested by blizzard, then retracted, because zerg players went ape shit on the forums.
I'm not sure why the community became so slanted in favor of zerg and anti protoss. But it has been clear and obvious to me for almost the entirety of WOL that this is the case. I really don't post much in balance discussions anymore, and haven't in a long time because of how unfair and biased things are in this regard.
It's okay to call protoss the "easy race", "noob race" ect. Most people actually believe this, and it is because they have not experienced how incredibly unforgiving protoss is, 1 mistake GG, even after you opponent has made several blunders. Both terran and zerg can macro purely with hot keys, imagine having to move your screen, press a key then click, every time you make a unit. You have to crono different buildings constantly all game. I would actually be easy to argue protoss has the toughest mechanics, based just on these two things. Also, keep in mind, these things don't give you an advantage, doing them is necessary just to be on equal footing. Queens give you a lot of advantages just for having them, creep spread gives you speed bonus and map vision just for doing it. If you ask me protoss has the most demanding mechanics, with the least added benefits.
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GomTV was not active enough with their map pools. I have no doubt that although zergs is powerful at the end of WoL, meta and maps will change that will lower their win rates
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On March 10 2013 02:42 BernabusStarcraft2 wrote:
Pretty much everything points out that Protoss was the worst race in WOL. By a fair amount.
Yup. We came, we saw, we got knocked out.
Hopeful for HotS though, although I'm not sure yet if it's optimism or just naivety.
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On March 10 2013 03:01 Andr3 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 02:42 BernabusStarcraft2 wrote:
Pretty much everything points out that Protoss was the worst race in WOL. By a fair amount. Protoss didn't win a major tournament for like ~2years in BW. Nobody whined about balance. In SC2 a race dominates for 4-5 months and it all goes bad.
The problem was that in WoL, the first half was dominated by Terran and the second half was dominated by Zerg. That doesn't leave very many halves left for Protoss to dominate now, does it?
And that was over three years, not 4 months.
But HotS should be good, as it seems that Protoss's skill ceiling will be raised, with new harassment options and new, viable tech and harassment paths.
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I think most of the zerg players are superior to toss players, weather it may be to skill or the fact that the skillceiling for toss is much lower than for terran or zerg.
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On March 10 2013 07:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 03:01 Andr3 wrote:On March 10 2013 02:42 BernabusStarcraft2 wrote:
Pretty much everything points out that Protoss was the worst race in WOL. By a fair amount. Protoss didn't win a major tournament for like ~2years in BW. Nobody whined about balance. In SC2 a race dominates for 4-5 months and it all goes bad. The problem was that in WoL, the first half was dominated by Terran and the second half was dominated by Zerg. That doesn't leave very many halves left for Protoss to dominate now, does it? And that was over three years, not 4 months. But HotS should be good, as it seems that Protoss's skill ceiling will be raised, with new harassment options and new, viable tech and harassment paths.
Maybe a vet can give an opinion, did BW viewership take off 2007-2009? That era seemed like one of the most racially mixed and rich periods of play from what I gather of the history. Can we tell a story that a more balanced game with richer matchups will attract and maintain more viewers? That sounds intuitively true. From what little I gathered, BW sounded like it had gone swarm season since I had stopped watching and that coincided with a fall in viewer numbers. The matches seemed less harass focused too (esp Toss).
It's clearly very hard to design and maintain a well balanced RTS but the payoffs are obvious. I am glad you're optimistic about the future of HoTS but I must admit the conservatism Blizz showed in its changes make me wonder if we're going to have a jumbled game for another 2 years until legacy of the void.
Reborn is spot on. In balance democracy the Toss pros bear the blame for not shouting on the mountains like prominent Terrans and Zergs. The sad zealot existed for far too long.
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Nice write up, and I am not so terribly suprised by the results. Good analysis!
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The opener itself played out entertainingly enough: both sides had high stakes (immediate, long-lasting loss of map control for Terran, severe economic damage or outright game loss for Zerg) and there was lots of action happening. Terrans were busy trying to snipe tumors, Z was busy trying to sneak them past the Hellions, players had to watch their Queens/Hellions constantly to prevent a Hellion/Speedling snipe, respectively, and so forth. The most important thing of all, though, was that it led to an actual midgame.
As a spectacle it was entertainment of a sort. As something Zergs had to actually play through game after game after game it was like pulling teeth. Eight minutes of the Terran trying to win and the Zerg trying to... not lose. Just spectating pro ZvT made my blood boil. Game 1: Zerg deflects hellion-banshee perfectly, fends off endless drops and grinds out a nailbiting 30 minute five-base win. Game 2: Proxy 2rax levels the score in six minutes flat. Game 3: Oh look, here he comes with his fucking hellions again, and two seconds' inattention halves the drone count and makes the rest of the game a formality.
That's not to say the queen buff was the right fix. As you say, it exposed the truth of Zerg: boring but strong. If a Zerg isn't flailing around trying not to die, he's not doing anything at all because there's nothing to do.
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On March 10 2013 02:42 BernabusStarcraft2 wrote:
Pretty much everything points out that Protoss was the worst race in WOL. By a fair amount.
except vs terran
and terran outside of korea was the worst/hardest/least forgiving.
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On March 10 2013 09:39 Emzeeshady wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 09:11 Sadist wrote:On March 10 2013 02:42 BernabusStarcraft2 wrote:
Pretty much everything points out that Protoss was the worst race in WOL. By a fair amount. except vs terran and terran outside of korea was the worst/hardest/least forgiving. no, there were just no good foreign Terrans. Most Warcraft 3 players went to Zerg/Toss cause they were more visually animated.
damn. I bet thats the reason.
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Very nice writeup, Orek. I'm hopeful that HotS will bring a better balance (in the long run) and more entertaining matchups compared to the WoL era.
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Protoss players never that good, their playstyle aren't really special. Terran has lots of styles and diversities and Zerg is simply OP at the end.
Cool read, thanks OP
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On March 10 2013 09:39 Emzeeshady wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 09:11 Sadist wrote:On March 10 2013 02:42 BernabusStarcraft2 wrote:
Pretty much everything points out that Protoss was the worst race in WOL. By a fair amount. except vs terran and terran outside of korea was the worst/hardest/least forgiving. no, there were just no good foreign Terrans. Most Warcraft 3 players went to Zerg/Toss cause they were more visually animated.
Actually terran is simply the hardest to get the max out of your units, but when you do its simply more then other races.
think of it as a line with numbers
terran goes 1-10 where other races go maybe 4-8.
You can get so much potential out of your units as terran if your good compared to other races.
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On March 10 2013 10:06 tuho12345 wrote:
Protoss players never that good, their playstyle aren't really special. Terran has lots of styles and diversities and Zerg is simply OP at the end.
Cool read, thanks OP
Are you kidding me? The players were just never that good?
The reason they don't have special playstyles is because PROTOSS IS DESIGNED TO HAVE ONE VIABLE PLAYSTYLE.
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This thread hurts to read.
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Great read!
Very nice layout and I especially like how you place your own views in their own neat little brackets. Well done, mate
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Those peaks is basically MC performing well that month lol
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Orek you pointed out how large the Terran population was. I'm curious what it would look like if the respective race 'populations' were equal.
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On March 10 2013 07:57 Sokrates wrote:
I think most of the zerg players are superior to toss players, weather it may be to skill or the fact that the skillceiling for toss is much lower than for terran or zerg.
I'm stuck between trying to upbraid you for poor spelling or offering you hemlock for your inability to think and hence utter disparagement of such a worthy name.
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Nice OP, pretty much confirms what was known. I think in balance discussions it should be assumed on average pros have similar skill levels across races, with the notable exception of Koreans being more skilled than foreigners on average.
I think a lot can be said about terran benefitting or requiring better mechanics, the lack of good terran pros in the foreign-scene, the relative ease of zerg and the utter long-term domination by them in many foreign countries.
I also think to some extent balance reflects the amount of map control each race can exert. Its a really important part of the game that is difficult to quantify.
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Great OP.
You already put in a lot of work, but if you are still in the chart churning mode, may I suggest putting up some similar information for BW OSl and MSL? I would be curious to see how a much more stable game would perform over time. You could use that as a baseline for what is "normal" win-rate fluctuation versus balance issues.
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On March 10 2013 10:15 Ruscour wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 10:06 tuho12345 wrote:
Protoss players never that good, their playstyle aren't really special. Terran has lots of styles and diversities and Zerg is simply OP at the end.
Cool read, thanks OP Are you kidding me? The players were just never that good? The reason they don't have special playstyles is because PROTOSS IS DESIGNED TO HAVE ONE VIABLE PLAYSTYLE.
That's simply not true. Protoss has many different playstyles by design. Fact of the matter is, that Stargate gets hardcountered by bio and infestors - the standard vP playstyles - and therefore is useless most of the time. Similar things can be said about early/midgame dropplay and lowtier macro spam.
Not to mention that Protoss turtleplay is not a design choice. Hell, Protoss can build units ANYWHERE with Warpgate. The reason why they are not doing this most of the time is again balancing. bio/roach wrecks a Protoss that does not sit tight. Which is not a design choice. It's just how the game got figured out.
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On March 10 2013 10:17 Locke- wrote:
This thread hurts to read.
I feel your pain
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The problem with toss is that the race is designed a lot around "builds", you do a "build", you dont react to your opponent (at least as a zerg i felt that very often when playing against toss). You just execute a premade build, when you hear toss players discuss about strategy it is not about reacting it is all about builds, "i put down my gas at x supply, i make a robo at x supply, i push out at xx:xxmins wiht x amount of units." So this gives you a big advantage at lets say highmasters/low gm level because it is really easy to execute premade builds no matter what your opponent does like the immortal sentry push or the kreatorbuild but it is a lot harder when you have really good opponents and against a race that has a much higher skill ceiling.
Toss doesnt have much options to harras or to bring in multitasking, also top tier players cant really seperate from decent players by macro since their macro is really easy compared to zerg. Also their micro in big battles is a lot easier compared to terran, a lot of units are good at a moving.
So toss is the easiest race to play but it is also really hard to get an edge when you are the better player. Of course a parting immo sentry allin is a lot better than a rnd gm toss immo sentry allin. The problem is that the defending player as a much bigger range in improving to defend against it than the immo sentry allin player can improve his allin.
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On March 10 2013 03:10 Coffee Zombie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 02:24 Emzeeshady wrote:On March 10 2013 02:21 forsooth wrote:On March 10 2013 02:17 Emzeeshady wrote:On March 10 2013 02:15 IAmMajiC wrote:
Pre-Queen buff was the best time ever for TvZ, easily. For Terrans... -_- Numbers prove otherwise. For several months in 2012 prior to the queen patch, the matchup was very even both internationally and in Korea, with Zergs actually holding a small edge in win rates in Korea. The patch changed what had become a well balanced, highly entertaining matchup into an extremely predictable, poorly balanced mess. There were 0 Zergs in the Code S Quarters And people complain about only having two Terrans in the quarters... -_- Also, most of the best TvZ matches were after the queen buff. The matchup was not only predictable to the point of annoyance but Zergs would also die to random Hellion runbys in half of the games because Queens were not good enough to open with. Eh, wut. If you didn't defend, sure. As far as WoL ZvT balance goes, though, apart from Infestors, the whole thing boils down to larvae. In the past, you needed larvae to defend early pushes and to shoo off the contain from Reactor Hellion Expand quickly. Zerg players didn't like it. I vividly remember the endless inanity of "making Roaches is unacceptable because it means we can't drone/tech optimally". I am serious. The damage IdrA and Artosis have done to Zerg players' mindset cannot be underestimated. The issue is that, as we all have (to our boredom) noticed over the last half a year, the Zerg economy, if unhindered, is broken. The ability to use all your production slots on nothing but economy is way too good to exist, except for the fact that in the past you could force Zerg to use larvae for defense. This meant both sides made army, econ and teched a bit. It was fair (though understandably felt bad for Z because they were literally being damaged). Also, the only really boring part about Reactor Hellion was that T went for it almost always. The opener itself played out entertainingly enough: both sides had high stakes (immediate, long-lasting loss of map control for Terran, severe economic damage or outright game loss for Zerg) and there was lots of action happening. Terrans were busy trying to snipe tumors, Z was busy trying to sneak them past the Hellions, players had to watch their Queens/Hellions constantly to prevent a Hellion/Speedling snipe, respectively, and so forth. The most important thing of all, though, was that it led to an actual midgame. And from here we get to the cascade effect the Queendralisk buff had. The early game implications are clear for all to see. But the ripple effects? Dear god. First, creep spread easily goes out of control, where spreading it was an effort before. The better economy allows for a very early swell of Infestors, which helps make Zerg safe and essentially kills the midgame, from which we get into quick, fast, Infestor/T3 comp with the accompanying tech switches. The sheer scale of the change is perhaps best realized when one stops to consider that in the past a 17 minute Hive was risky and greedy. Such a far cry from our current, absurdly safe 12 minute Hive timings, isn't it? That's all because Z had to invest into a midgame to fight off the Terran midgame (which they could get to due to less creep and slower Zerg development). And damn, was that midgame ever good. The slower Hive timings also made the late game more bearable - Terran had more time to get their infrastructure up to contend with Zerg's endgame composition. The fundamental character of it was then, and still is expensive, inflexible Terran infrastructure making very narrow anti-1-unit counters that have no other use vs. a flexible Zerg infrastructure making little but threats. The greatest casualty of the Queendralisk patch hasn't been balance, though - a certain amount of imbalance you can work around and it is even entertaining for some. The greatest casualties have been fun (the game has become dull), the idea that the game makes any kind of sense (the kind of imbalance and it's degree make the games feel just plain stupid). I also can't tell good and bad Zergs apart anymore. In the past, great creep spread was an achievement. There were brilliant holds, good game sense, great flanks. Mutas hadn't been eclipsed so badly and so were an actual (not just stubbornly stylistic) option. Now it's the same dull monotony where it feels like the sheer, absurd, dominant power of some key units does more work than the player.
Good post overall, i agree
By the way isn't that copy pasted from somewhere ? I feel i've seen those exact words before ...
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Data seems not to reflect games. Really surprised by this
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On March 10 2013 12:15 Sokrates wrote:
The problem with toss is that the race is designed a lot around "builds", you do a "build", you dont react to your opponent (at least as a zerg i felt that very often when playing against toss). You just execute a premade build, when you hear toss players discuss about strategy it is not about reacting it is all about builds, "i put down my gas at x supply, i make a robo at x supply, i push out at xx:xxmins wiht x amount of units." So this gives you a big advantage at lets say highmasters/low gm level because it is really easy to execute premade builds no matter what your opponent does like the immortal sentry push or the kreatorbuild but it is a lot harder when you have really good opponents and against a race that has a much higher skill ceiling.
Toss doesnt have much options to harras or to bring in multitasking, also top tier players cant really seperate from decent players by macro since their macro is really easy compared to zerg. Also their micro in big battles is a lot easier compared to terran, a lot of units are good at a moving.
So toss is the easiest race to play but it is also really hard to get an edge when you are the better player. Of course a parting immo sentry allin is a lot better than a rnd gm toss immo sentry allin. The problem is that the defending player as a much bigger range in improving to defend against it than the immo sentry allin player can improve his allin.
Your observations are accurate, but you misunderstand the WHY. Protoss early builds are so predictable because there is such a slim margin of builds that won't simply be a build order loss.
Against zerg, you have to take your nat asap and get a cannon, and a gatewway, before gas, or lings can kill you. So you have very little viable options. Then you have to get a stalker, and warp. Until that stalker is out, overlords have free run. Until you get a robo, hallucination, or starport, you have almost no information if the zerg is careful to deny probes scouts. You probably know whether or not he has a 3rd. But did he saturate it fully? Did he make a spire? How much gas does he have? Infestors? Roach Max? Roach hydra aggression? Doom drops? All of these things are powerful zerg options.So then you get the scout, you have the option of take 3rd and turtle to a max deathball which gives the zerg all day to make whatever they want, or you all in and hit before hive.
Now keep this in mind, if you go templar vs roaches, you are going to have a bad time. If you go robo vs muta, you are going to have a bad time. If you don't have colossus vs infestor roach, you are going to have a bad time. If you go air vs roach hydra aggression, you are going to have a bad time. Now it doesn't mean that if you chose the wrong tech you are dead, but you probably will be unable to leave your base until you get the right tech out. Which probably means you couldn't take a 3rd or are about to lose the one you did take. By the time you do have a second tech path out, the zerg has 4 bases, hive, and you are just trying to hold your 3rd.
How often do you see this happen to top protoss? Not often, because they do scout, they do pick the right tech path. If they see a spire, they get blink and templar. If they see roach infestor, they get out robo units, if they see hydra they get colossus. If they see fast hive, they usually all in before broods, or turtle till they have storm, mothership, colossus,archons, blink stalkers, lots of warp gates to re enforce (which still typically loses to broodlord infestor)
TLDR; the rigid builds that protoss use are boring and predictable. It is because the window of what is viable for protoss and the amount of viable builds against you, dictate a very slim path that can allow you to safely get into a macro game and have the right tech in play so you don't die and aren't trapped at home while behind on bases. The reason you see so common and predictable builds from protoss pro's is NOT because they are bad or do not innovate. We've seen tons of innovation from protoss, and we've seen it all get figured out and shut down. Lot's of protoss experimented and after some time they realize "oh, thats why everyone does this", because it's really ALL you can EXPECT to do.
I spoke about the MYTH that toss is easier to play earlier in this thread as well.
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Orek: amazing analysis as usual :D
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It's always funny to read how biased Terran players are and ignorant to the actual realities of the games balance, Terrans would tell you that they deserve to be made Saints because playing Terran is of the same caliber of Jesus' sacrifice. The whole foreigner Terran struggle argument is completely invalid to me because there are no where near as much hard working foreign Terran as there is Protoss and Zerg, I would love to see someone veto all foreigner players who have trained in Korea who have predominantly been Protoss and Zerg in the foreigner standings, I would not at all be surprised to see Terran do much better on the totem pole for non KR.
Another key thing that people seem to not realize is players that ride imbalance will always struggle once the nerfs hit until they learn to adapt, this was predominantly the case after all the Terran nerfs hit and will be the case come Heart of the Swarm for Zerg (Although Zerg is underpowered imo). As a Protoss player I would personally love to be able to consistently beat players I am better than like Terran do, but do to the race design this isn't always the case so be grateful for what you have.
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Fuck... I hope Protoss dominates the entire fricking HOTS... we are owed some good win rates in GSL damnit...
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On March 10 2013 16:33 mrtomjones wrote:
Fuck... I hope Protoss dominates the entire fricking HOTS... we are owed some good win rates in GSL damnit...
Protoss pros should start being more consistent then, they show up one week and just completely dominate and look unbeatable. The next week they go up 3000 resources without spending anything and look like bronze scrubs.
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On March 10 2013 12:41 Marti wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 03:10 Coffee Zombie wrote:On March 10 2013 02:24 Emzeeshady wrote:On March 10 2013 02:21 forsooth wrote:On March 10 2013 02:17 Emzeeshady wrote:On March 10 2013 02:15 IAmMajiC wrote:
Pre-Queen buff was the best time ever for TvZ, easily. For Terrans... -_- Numbers prove otherwise. For several months in 2012 prior to the queen patch, the matchup was very even both internationally and in Korea, with Zergs actually holding a small edge in win rates in Korea. The patch changed what had become a well balanced, highly entertaining matchup into an extremely predictable, poorly balanced mess. There were 0 Zergs in the Code S Quarters And people complain about only having two Terrans in the quarters... -_- Also, most of the best TvZ matches were after the queen buff. The matchup was not only predictable to the point of annoyance but Zergs would also die to random Hellion runbys in half of the games because Queens were not good enough to open with. Eh, wut. If you didn't defend, sure. As far as WoL ZvT balance goes, though, apart from Infestors, the whole thing boils down to larvae. In the past, you needed larvae to defend early pushes and to shoo off the contain from Reactor Hellion Expand quickly. Zerg players didn't like it. I vividly remember the endless inanity of "making Roaches is unacceptable because it means we can't drone/tech optimally". I am serious. The damage IdrA and Artosis have done to Zerg players' mindset cannot be underestimated. The issue is that, as we all have (to our boredom) noticed over the last half a year, the Zerg economy, if unhindered, is broken. The ability to use all your production slots on nothing but economy is way too good to exist, except for the fact that in the past you could force Zerg to use larvae for defense. This meant both sides made army, econ and teched a bit. It was fair (though understandably felt bad for Z because they were literally being damaged). Also, the only really boring part about Reactor Hellion was that T went for it almost always. The opener itself played out entertainingly enough: both sides had high stakes (immediate, long-lasting loss of map control for Terran, severe economic damage or outright game loss for Zerg) and there was lots of action happening. Terrans were busy trying to snipe tumors, Z was busy trying to sneak them past the Hellions, players had to watch their Queens/Hellions constantly to prevent a Hellion/Speedling snipe, respectively, and so forth. The most important thing of all, though, was that it led to an actual midgame. And from here we get to the cascade effect the Queendralisk buff had. The early game implications are clear for all to see. But the ripple effects? Dear god. First, creep spread easily goes out of control, where spreading it was an effort before. The better economy allows for a very early swell of Infestors, which helps make Zerg safe and essentially kills the midgame, from which we get into quick, fast, Infestor/T3 comp with the accompanying tech switches. The sheer scale of the change is perhaps best realized when one stops to consider that in the past a 17 minute Hive was risky and greedy. Such a far cry from our current, absurdly safe 12 minute Hive timings, isn't it? That's all because Z had to invest into a midgame to fight off the Terran midgame (which they could get to due to less creep and slower Zerg development). And damn, was that midgame ever good. The slower Hive timings also made the late game more bearable - Terran had more time to get their infrastructure up to contend with Zerg's endgame composition. The fundamental character of it was then, and still is expensive, inflexible Terran infrastructure making very narrow anti-1-unit counters that have no other use vs. a flexible Zerg infrastructure making little but threats. The greatest casualty of the Queendralisk patch hasn't been balance, though - a certain amount of imbalance you can work around and it is even entertaining for some. The greatest casualties have been fun (the game has become dull), the idea that the game makes any kind of sense (the kind of imbalance and it's degree make the games feel just plain stupid). I also can't tell good and bad Zergs apart anymore. In the past, great creep spread was an achievement. There were brilliant holds, good game sense, great flanks. Mutas hadn't been eclipsed so badly and so were an actual (not just stubbornly stylistic) option. Now it's the same dull monotony where it feels like the sheer, absurd, dominant power of some key units does more work than the player. Good post overall, i agree By the way isn't that copy pasted from somewhere ? I feel i've seen those exact words before ...
Ssh, I just happened to write what I wrote in an earlier thread almost to a word. Move on, nothing to see here...
Or I'm just a lazy SOB who thinks he made his points well enough in that thread buried somewhere in the past (as evidenced by people who actually bothered to read the post saying it is good) and copypastes himself because why not.
Your pick :D
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I watched this game since beta. I watched everything. But I stopped watching in november since the game has no flow anymore. There is no dynamic midgame. Just tech rushes or hive rushes.
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On March 10 2013 10:42 monkybone wrote:
People saying there are not good foreign Terrans needs to get their heads out of their butts... There are many professional foreigner Terrans playing and practicing as much as anyone else. They just don't get the results, and there's obviously a reason for that. It's not a coincidence, that the bad players happened to be Terran, that's ridiculous. Terran is just a lot harder, making Terran underpowered at professional levels below code S.
More or less this. It's called the skill race for a reason.
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On March 10 2013 17:21 Coffee Zombie wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 12:41 Marti wrote:On March 10 2013 03:10 Coffee Zombie wrote:On March 10 2013 02:24 Emzeeshady wrote:On March 10 2013 02:21 forsooth wrote:On March 10 2013 02:17 Emzeeshady wrote:On March 10 2013 02:15 IAmMajiC wrote:
Pre-Queen buff was the best time ever for TvZ, easily. For Terrans... -_- Numbers prove otherwise. For several months in 2012 prior to the queen patch, the matchup was very even both internationally and in Korea, with Zergs actually holding a small edge in win rates in Korea. The patch changed what had become a well balanced, highly entertaining matchup into an extremely predictable, poorly balanced mess. There were 0 Zergs in the Code S Quarters And people complain about only having two Terrans in the quarters... -_- Also, most of the best TvZ matches were after the queen buff. The matchup was not only predictable to the point of annoyance but Zergs would also die to random Hellion runbys in half of the games because Queens were not good enough to open with. Eh, wut. If you didn't defend, sure. As far as WoL ZvT balance goes, though, apart from Infestors, the whole thing boils down to larvae. In the past, you needed larvae to defend early pushes and to shoo off the contain from Reactor Hellion Expand quickly. Zerg players didn't like it. I vividly remember the endless inanity of "making Roaches is unacceptable because it means we can't drone/tech optimally". I am serious. The damage IdrA and Artosis have done to Zerg players' mindset cannot be underestimated. The issue is that, as we all have (to our boredom) noticed over the last half a year, the Zerg economy, if unhindered, is broken. The ability to use all your production slots on nothing but economy is way too good to exist, except for the fact that in the past you could force Zerg to use larvae for defense. This meant both sides made army, econ and teched a bit. It was fair (though understandably felt bad for Z because they were literally being damaged). Also, the only really boring part about Reactor Hellion was that T went for it almost always. The opener itself played out entertainingly enough: both sides had high stakes (immediate, long-lasting loss of map control for Terran, severe economic damage or outright game loss for Zerg) and there was lots of action happening. Terrans were busy trying to snipe tumors, Z was busy trying to sneak them past the Hellions, players had to watch their Queens/Hellions constantly to prevent a Hellion/Speedling snipe, respectively, and so forth. The most important thing of all, though, was that it led to an actual midgame. And from here we get to the cascade effect the Queendralisk buff had. The early game implications are clear for all to see. But the ripple effects? Dear god. First, creep spread easily goes out of control, where spreading it was an effort before. The better economy allows for a very early swell of Infestors, which helps make Zerg safe and essentially kills the midgame, from which we get into quick, fast, Infestor/T3 comp with the accompanying tech switches. The sheer scale of the change is perhaps best realized when one stops to consider that in the past a 17 minute Hive was risky and greedy. Such a far cry from our current, absurdly safe 12 minute Hive timings, isn't it? That's all because Z had to invest into a midgame to fight off the Terran midgame (which they could get to due to less creep and slower Zerg development). And damn, was that midgame ever good. The slower Hive timings also made the late game more bearable - Terran had more time to get their infrastructure up to contend with Zerg's endgame composition. The fundamental character of it was then, and still is expensive, inflexible Terran infrastructure making very narrow anti-1-unit counters that have no other use vs. a flexible Zerg infrastructure making little but threats. The greatest casualty of the Queendralisk patch hasn't been balance, though - a certain amount of imbalance you can work around and it is even entertaining for some. The greatest casualties have been fun (the game has become dull), the idea that the game makes any kind of sense (the kind of imbalance and it's degree make the games feel just plain stupid). I also can't tell good and bad Zergs apart anymore. In the past, great creep spread was an achievement. There were brilliant holds, good game sense, great flanks. Mutas hadn't been eclipsed so badly and so were an actual (not just stubbornly stylistic) option. Now it's the same dull monotony where it feels like the sheer, absurd, dominant power of some key units does more work than the player. Good post overall, i agree By the way isn't that copy pasted from somewhere ? I feel i've seen those exact words before ... Ssh, I just happened to write what I wrote in an earlier thread almost to a word. Move on, nothing to see here... Or I'm just a lazy SOB who thinks he made his points well enough in that thread buried somewhere in the past (as evidenced by people who actually bothered to read the post saying it is good) and copypastes himself because why not. Your pick :D It looks like a post I made in a blog about the queen buff some months ago :D
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On March 10 2013 16:27 AstroPegnuin wrote:
It's always funny to read how biased Terran players are and ignorant to the actual realities of the games balance,
The whole foreigner Terran struggle argument is completely invalid to me because there are no where near as much hard working foreign Terran as there is Protoss and Zerg,
So terran players are biased and you are not based on second sentence?
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On March 10 2013 18:04 keglu wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 16:27 AstroPegnuin wrote:
It's always funny to read how biased Terran players are and ignorant to the actual realities of the games balance,
The whole foreigner Terran struggle argument is completely invalid to me because there are no where near as much hard working foreign Terran as there is Protoss and Zerg, So terran players are biased and you are not based on second sentence?
It might be subjective but I expand upon it a bit later if you'd keep reading, the gist of it is that a majority of the foreigner results are from people who have went to Korea. I ought to have mentioned that the only real Terran who stuck it out in Korea was Thorzain (Who has results to show for it) and Jinro
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On March 10 2013 00:10 Assirra wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2013 23:42 mlspmatt wrote:
Game looked pretty balanced before Queen buff. Makes you wonder why that was implemented. What did Blizzard see in the numbers that led them to the conclusion it was needed.
Terran dominated for a long time, but it wasn't all due to balance. Terran had a stronger tradition of champions from BroodWar, a lot of the current top Koreans grew up watching these guys, so it was natural that a greater share of talented Koreans choosing to play SC2 would choose Terran. And Terran was IMBA for a while as well. Are we seriously back to the "Terran has better players" nonsense again?
So many of them believe they are just better so that's why their winrate should be higher. It's complete bullshit.
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On March 09 2013 22:11 MateShade wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2013 20:48 JJH777 wrote:On March 09 2013 20:46 MateShade wrote:
its kind of a shame, after all the ups and downs the game was hitting perfect balance right before zerg became really overpowered, it was only going to get worse as well. I think its safe to say more zerg nerfs were incoming and then we may have actually reached balance Immediately before the queen patch Zerg had their worst GSL season ever. Only 2 in the ro16 and 0 in the ro8. They only had like 5-6 in the ro32 too. I wouldn't call that hitting perfect balance.. Obviously the queen patch wasn't the right answer but zerg was very weak before the queen patch. Yes, zerg had their worst season ever. 7 in the ro32, aside from that you are correct. The season previously was won by zerg (DRG) and leenock came runner up the season before that. The current imbalance is a result of knee-jerk patches. Protoss were becoming notably underpowered over the course of 6 months prior to this period. Protoss received several buffs (rightly so). this resulted in a saturation of protoss players in the top end of gsl, and zerg suffered for it (except the fact that leenock came 2nd and DRG won the gsl.. 'suffered' is a very harsh word for what really happened...). In the 6 months before the queen patch, the game was looking more balanced than it had ever been, and then a short drop for zerg happened at the end. There was no evidence to suggest that zerg actually needed any buffs, they went through a relatively short period (2-3 months) where zerg win rates dropped below the other races. And then came the queen buff.. way too quickly and way too unsubstantiated.. and then afterwards another long period of imbalance - similar to protoss - where terran is now the weakest race. Even though zerg is/was getting nerfed over the past 2 months (rightly so), zerg win rates continue to rise. This suggests to me that if the queen patch never happened, zerg would have recovered just fine. If the queen patch never happened we would be much closer to balance than what has happened now, which is basically the most imbalance sc2 has seen yet.
Lol what !???
This last season in GSL, the participants numbers in code A+S were the most balanced we have never had actually. For the first time terrans were not the most numerous (I did the calculation and it was 24T+24P+26Z iirc).
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
On March 10 2013 19:04 samurai80 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 00:10 Assirra wrote:On March 09 2013 23:42 mlspmatt wrote:
Game looked pretty balanced before Queen buff. Makes you wonder why that was implemented. What did Blizzard see in the numbers that led them to the conclusion it was needed.
Terran dominated for a long time, but it wasn't all due to balance. Terran had a stronger tradition of champions from BroodWar, a lot of the current top Koreans grew up watching these guys, so it was natural that a greater share of talented Koreans choosing to play SC2 would choose Terran. And Terran was IMBA for a while as well. Are we seriously back to the "Terran has better players" nonsense again? So many of them believe they are just better so that's why their winrate should be higher. It's complete bullshit.
It's not why it should be higher, it's why it is higher.
MVP for example no matter what the balance was went out and won 5 GSL titles. It's not because he's terran, it's because he's by far the best SC2 player. Looking at win rates, especially across all tournaments is fine to do, but you have to realise it's not just the race, it's the player and their individual skill that makes the difference.
Flash in BW for example, did he dominate purely on the back of the terran race? No, by god he's a damn good Terran player, but it wasn't because Terran was OP (especially when TvP is so much harder than PvT) he won so much because of his skill/mind set.
Blizzard need to think much more this time (which is what they are) with HoTS and not do balance changes too often. Let the maps and players figure stuff out. Airtoss is broken as bases are too easy to get on so many maps and there's too many "full bases" that are super quick to get. There's also maps like Newkirk who have too much airspace so air is too good, but then you also have maps like Cloud Kingdom, where if it wasn't for the super easy to take third and fourth bases, air play would be awful due to there being no deadspace to use your air units with.
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On March 10 2013 19:14 Qikz wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 19:04 samurai80 wrote:On March 10 2013 00:10 Assirra wrote:On March 09 2013 23:42 mlspmatt wrote:
Game looked pretty balanced before Queen buff. Makes you wonder why that was implemented. What did Blizzard see in the numbers that led them to the conclusion it was needed.
Terran dominated for a long time, but it wasn't all due to balance. Terran had a stronger tradition of champions from BroodWar, a lot of the current top Koreans grew up watching these guys, so it was natural that a greater share of talented Koreans choosing to play SC2 would choose Terran. And Terran was IMBA for a while as well. Are we seriously back to the "Terran has better players" nonsense again? So many of them believe they are just better so that's why their winrate should be higher. It's complete bullshit. It's not why it should be higher, it's why it is higher. MVP for example no matter what the balance was went out and won 5 GSL titles. It's not because he's terran, it's because he's by far the best SC2 player. Looking at win rates, especially across all tournaments is fine to do, but you have to realise it's not just the race, it's the player and their individual skill that makes the difference. Flash in BW for example, did he dominate purely on the back of the terran race? No, by god he's a damn good Terran player, but it wasn't because Terran was OP (especially when TvP is so much harder than PvT) he won so much because of his skill/mind set.
No, just no.
I mean, terran is the race that enables players to abuse of certain techniques, provided they are skilled enough. It's not that protoss or zerg players are less skilled, it's that they don't have the same tools to abuse of their skills. Then maybe more skilled players choose to be terran, but it's because the terran race is OP for them in the first place.
For me whatever you can say about it, statistics don't lie if the numbers are big enough and terrans saying they have more players in high level because their players are just more skilled is just total nonsense. There is not even more to say about that.
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On March 10 2013 19:22 samurai80 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 19:14 Qikz wrote:On March 10 2013 19:04 samurai80 wrote:On March 10 2013 00:10 Assirra wrote:On March 09 2013 23:42 mlspmatt wrote:
Game looked pretty balanced before Queen buff. Makes you wonder why that was implemented. What did Blizzard see in the numbers that led them to the conclusion it was needed.
Terran dominated for a long time, but it wasn't all due to balance. Terran had a stronger tradition of champions from BroodWar, a lot of the current top Koreans grew up watching these guys, so it was natural that a greater share of talented Koreans choosing to play SC2 would choose Terran. And Terran was IMBA for a while as well. Are we seriously back to the "Terran has better players" nonsense again? So many of them believe they are just better so that's why their winrate should be higher. It's complete bullshit. It's not why it should be higher, it's why it is higher. MVP for example no matter what the balance was went out and won 5 GSL titles. It's not because he's terran, it's because he's by far the best SC2 player. Looking at win rates, especially across all tournaments is fine to do, but you have to realise it's not just the race, it's the player and their individual skill that makes the difference. Flash in BW for example, did he dominate purely on the back of the terran race? No, by god he's a damn good Terran player, but it wasn't because Terran was OP (especially when TvP is so much harder than PvT) he won so much because of his skill/mind set. No, just no. I mean, terran is the race that enables players to abuse of certain techniques, their are skilled enough. It's not that protoss or zerg players are less skilled, it's that they don't have the same tools to abuse of their skills. Then maybe more skilled players choose to be terran, but it's because the terran race is OP for them in the first place. For me whatever you can say about it, statistics don't lie if the numbers are big enough and terrans saying they have more players in high level because their players are just more skilled is just total nonsense. There is not even more to say about that.
Its not about abusing, its about good race design. Terran was always race that that scaled really well with players skill because of great micro potential, promoting mutlitasking by being strong in small unit groups etc.
So its not that terran player are better, just their race gave them abillity to shine.
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On March 10 2013 18:09 AstroPegnuin wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 18:04 keglu wrote:On March 10 2013 16:27 AstroPegnuin wrote:
It's always funny to read how biased Terran players are and ignorant to the actual realities of the games balance,
The whole foreigner Terran struggle argument is completely invalid to me because there are no where near as much hard working foreign Terran as there is Protoss and Zerg, So terran players are biased and you are not based on second sentence? It might be subjective but I expand upon it a bit later if you'd keep reading, the gist of it is that a majority of the foreigner results are from people who have went to Korea. I ought to have mentioned that the only real Terran who stuck it out in Korea was Thorzain (Who has results to show for it) and Jinro
Its definietly subjective and biased to say "foreing Terran just dont practice enough".
Also all most of these foreing Zerg players were never in Korea.
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On March 10 2013 19:48 keglu wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 19:22 samurai80 wrote:On March 10 2013 19:14 Qikz wrote:On March 10 2013 19:04 samurai80 wrote:On March 10 2013 00:10 Assirra wrote:On March 09 2013 23:42 mlspmatt wrote:
Game looked pretty balanced before Queen buff. Makes you wonder why that was implemented. What did Blizzard see in the numbers that led them to the conclusion it was needed.
Terran dominated for a long time, but it wasn't all due to balance. Terran had a stronger tradition of champions from BroodWar, a lot of the current top Koreans grew up watching these guys, so it was natural that a greater share of talented Koreans choosing to play SC2 would choose Terran. And Terran was IMBA for a while as well. Are we seriously back to the "Terran has better players" nonsense again? So many of them believe they are just better so that's why their winrate should be higher. It's complete bullshit. It's not why it should be higher, it's why it is higher. MVP for example no matter what the balance was went out and won 5 GSL titles. It's not because he's terran, it's because he's by far the best SC2 player. Looking at win rates, especially across all tournaments is fine to do, but you have to realise it's not just the race, it's the player and their individual skill that makes the difference. Flash in BW for example, did he dominate purely on the back of the terran race? No, by god he's a damn good Terran player, but it wasn't because Terran was OP (especially when TvP is so much harder than PvT) he won so much because of his skill/mind set. No, just no. I mean, terran is the race that enables players to abuse of certain techniques, their are skilled enough. It's not that protoss or zerg players are less skilled, it's that they don't have the same tools to abuse of their skills. Then maybe more skilled players choose to be terran, but it's because the terran race is OP for them in the first place. For me whatever you can say about it, statistics don't lie if the numbers are big enough and terrans saying they have more players in high level because their players are just more skilled is just total nonsense. There is not even more to say about that. Its not about abusing, its about good race design. Terran was always race that that scaled really well with players skill because of great micro potential, promoting mutlitasking by being strong in small unit groups etc. So its not that terran player are better, just their race gave them abillity to shine.
That's what I meant but you said it better.
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On March 10 2013 18:55 monkybone wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 16:27 AstroPegnuin wrote:
It's always funny to read how biased Terran players are and ignorant to the actual realities of the games balance, Terrans would tell you that they deserve to be made Saints because playing Terran is of the same caliber of Jesus' sacrifice. The whole foreigner Terran struggle argument is completely invalid to me because there are no where near as much hard working foreign Terran as there is Protoss and Zerg, I would love to see someone veto all foreigner players who have trained in Korea who have predominantly been Protoss and Zerg in the foreigner standings, I would not at all be surprised to see Terran do much better on the totem pole for non KR.
There's a reason why there's not as many Terran players and Protoss and Zerg players. There is a continuous spectrum of skill among the players, and the density is just higher at the top for Protoss and Zergs. For every mediocre Protoss and Zerg you have a bad Terran who is not differing in skill. And for every good Protoss and Zerg you have a mediocre Terran. It gives the impression of that there are less Terrans than Zergs and Protosses, but the matter of fact is that the few foreign Terran players who actually are relevant practice their ass off like no one else, like Kas. To just look at it superficially and say that there's just not as many Terrans as there are Zergs and Protosses and state that as a reason why Terran is doing bad in the foreign scene is inverting the causality. Terran isn't doing bad because of lack of Terrans. There is a lack of Terrans because Terran is harder at the pro level.
That's such a crap myth that Terrans continously try to build up. Anytime a foreigner was really dominant you could find more than one source saying that he/she has Koreanlevel mechanics - Idra, Jinro, Huk, Naniwa, Stephano, MaNa, Thorzain, Nerchio.
Basically just read a list of premier tournament winners, lookout for foreigners and you will find those names - and hardly any other apart from a few exceptions - again. It's the guys with Code A/S mechanics that are topforeigners, regardless of what they play.
Even more, if you go to sc2ranks.com and watch the racedistribution of Korea you will see that Protoss was often the most played race there. According to the "Protoss/Zerg easier"-myth the GSL should have had at least the same Protoss representation as it had Terrans or Zergs right now (similar/higher amount of players, easier to go pro with protoss according to the myth). But this statistical effect didn't show up for 2.5years.
We know today that gameplay 2 years ago was very suboptimal. According to P/Z "easier to learn", players of those races should have dominated Terran at that time as Terrans would have been stuck at a lower skilllevel compared to P/Z mediocre skilllevel. I ask you, where were they? Why could Mvp, Polt, MKP, MMA dominate over players that with the same training were already closer to optimal play?
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I'm probably in the minority here, but I feel Blizzard's continuous patching of the game really detracted from my enjoyment of socializing with others fellow SC fans. It seems like half the posts in any thread talks about OP race and how Blizzard sucks for not taking care of it yesterday. Because it seemed like whack a mole with Blizzard. Some player figures out an OP strategy, community gets pissed. Blizzard covers it with a patch. But as a result, it makes another strategy OP, community gets pissed, etc.
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
On March 10 2013 19:22 samurai80 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 19:14 Qikz wrote:On March 10 2013 19:04 samurai80 wrote:On March 10 2013 00:10 Assirra wrote:On March 09 2013 23:42 mlspmatt wrote:
Game looked pretty balanced before Queen buff. Makes you wonder why that was implemented. What did Blizzard see in the numbers that led them to the conclusion it was needed.
Terran dominated for a long time, but it wasn't all due to balance. Terran had a stronger tradition of champions from BroodWar, a lot of the current top Koreans grew up watching these guys, so it was natural that a greater share of talented Koreans choosing to play SC2 would choose Terran. And Terran was IMBA for a while as well. Are we seriously back to the "Terran has better players" nonsense again? So many of them believe they are just better so that's why their winrate should be higher. It's complete bullshit. It's not why it should be higher, it's why it is higher. MVP for example no matter what the balance was went out and won 5 GSL titles. It's not because he's terran, it's because he's by far the best SC2 player. Looking at win rates, especially across all tournaments is fine to do, but you have to realise it's not just the race, it's the player and their individual skill that makes the difference. Flash in BW for example, did he dominate purely on the back of the terran race? No, by god he's a damn good Terran player, but it wasn't because Terran was OP (especially when TvP is so much harder than PvT) he won so much because of his skill/mind set. No, just no. I mean, terran is the race that enables players to abuse of certain techniques, provided they are skilled enough. It's not that protoss or zerg players are less skilled, it's that they don't have the same tools to abuse of their skills. Then maybe more skilled players choose to be terran, but it's because the terran race is OP for them in the first place. For me whatever you can say about it, statistics don't lie if the numbers are big enough and terrans saying they have more players in high level because their players are just more skilled is just total nonsense. There is not even more to say about that.
You can say what you want about how many players in the high level, but we shouldn't look at that for balance, we should look at winners. The GSL for example is very bad (especially the early seasons where nobody would drop out) to judge balance on because of how randomized the path up into code S is. Some people get super easy pathways to get into code S where as others get super hard pathways depending on groups and or what they end up with in Code B/Code A. Heck, even tournament wins are hard to judge as no one person plays every single other player.
If anything the area you should look at for balance is the Ro8/Ro4 of all tournaments. That shows the people who have fought their way out of group stages through most likely skill.
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The problem I have with analysis like this is that the numbers are inherently flawed. If it was the exact same players every season playing the exact same patch then it would he more meaningful.
As it is, every new patch should essentially "reset" all analysis and make older data obsolete. It doesn't matter what balance was like in the previous patch, let alone three or four patches ago. Each individual patch had too few GSL level games to ever make meaningful statistical statements, in my opinion.
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On March 10 2013 21:54 KrazyTrumpet wrote:
The problem I have with analysis like this is that the numbers are inherently flawed. If it was the exact same players every season playing the exact same patch then it would he more meaningful.
As it is, every new patch should essentially "reset" all analysis and make older data obsolete. It doesn't matter what balance was like in the previous patch, let alone three or four patches ago. Each individual patch had too few GSL level games to ever make meaningful statistical statements, in my opinion.
I think the same way as you.
Thats why i cant agree with all the statistics, whine, saying someone is the greatest ever, right now.
I know its something impossible for 99,99% of people here, but you must wait maybe 3 years after the
release of LOV to say something about the game or the players.
One can dream 
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On March 10 2013 21:54 KrazyTrumpet wrote:
The problem I have with analysis like this is that the numbers are inherently flawed. If it was the exact same players every season playing the exact same patch then it would he more meaningful.
As it is, every new patch should essentially "reset" all analysis and make older data obsolete. It doesn't matter what balance was like in the previous patch, let alone three or four patches ago. Each individual patch had too few GSL level games to ever make meaningful statistical statements, in my opinion.
Well, let's be clear here - it's not the numbers or statistics that are flawed, they're objective descriptions of what actually happened in reality. What's "flawed" (I'd honestly prefer "incomplete") is any attempt at weaving said numbers or statistics into an argument as to whether or not significant and meaningful imbalance is present in the game.
I also don't think it's totally true that each patch individually affected SC2 so drastically that we were effectively seeing different games after every patch. I do strongly believe that - even though patches do play a significant role in how strategies and tactics evolve over time - there nevertheless exists a large component of strategy and tactics particular to each race that largely stayed the same over the course of WoL, and therefore that it's still meaningful to talk about racial balance across patches.
EDIT: And even if this wasn't true, you'd totally still be able to perform analyses to see how particular patches affect racial winrates. This is a big part of the usual "balance" discussion!
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Thanks for this Orek, good read and some quite horrifying stats hopefully hots wont be as volatile.
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On March 09 2013 19:58 rj rl wrote:
lol protoss was never good, that's sad
Not a lot of Protoss in the tournament means that the sample size is smaller for them and every loss counts more than for the other two races. Thus Protoss will have a bad statistic every time they dont win the tournament.
On March 11 2013 03:06 Tobblish wrote:
Thanks for this Orek, good read and some quite horrifying stats hopefully hots wont be as volatile.
My prediction is that it will be even more so (unless it is totally skewed towards one dominating race), because WoL wasnt really "finished balancing" (there were changes to the units right until the end) and HotS adds new units on top of that ...
There are some obvious reasons as to why the game is so volatile and hard to balance, but I guess most people are unwilling to hear them (again).
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Nice analysis, it's so hard to find Balance discussion on actual statistics.
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On March 11 2013 03:15 Rabiator wrote:Not a lot of Protoss in the tournament means that the sample size is smaller for them and every loss counts more than for the other two races. Thus Protoss will have a bad statistic every time they dont win the tournament. Show nested quote +On March 11 2013 03:06 Tobblish wrote:
Thanks for this Orek, good read and some quite horrifying stats hopefully hots wont be as volatile. My prediction is that it will be even more so (unless it is totally skewed towards one dominating race), because WoL wasnt really "finished balancing" (there were changes to the units right until the end) and HotS adds new units on top of that ... There are some obvious reasons as to why the game is so volatile and hard to balance, but I guess most people are unwilling to hear them (again).
I am glad you're taking hte level headed approach...
Statistics are merely a tool to tell a story. Any halfway competent person observing the games could draw a roughly similar timeline to what the stats pulled. GomTvT was the consequence of a badly designed and badly balanced game.
God I wish people would look past their personal ladder problems.
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On March 10 2013 20:58 baubo wrote:
I'm probably in the minority here, but I feel Blizzard's continuous patching of the game really detracted from my enjoyment of socializing with others fellow SC fans. It seems like half the posts in any thread talks about OP race and how Blizzard sucks for not taking care of it yesterday. Because it seemed like whack a mole with Blizzard. Some player figures out an OP strategy, community gets pissed. Blizzard covers it with a patch. But as a result, it makes another strategy OP, community gets pissed, etc.
The problem, in my opinion is that imbalances are a lot more of an issue in SC2 than they were in BW. SC2 games were (and still are) often resolved in a quick battle in the mid or late game (the ball vs ball syndrome). In this scenario little imbalances (or what is viewed as imbalanced) make it so one player just cannot recover and loses. BW was more forgiving because of its old gameplay (bad AI, limitations of control etc), therefore if some things may have been imbalanced between units they weren't the biggest challenge a player had to face. His biggest challenge was micro and macro and that was able to eclipse possible balance issues (also it made attacking a lot harder than defending) whereas in my opinion SC2 is way too much rooted in a "composition" vs "composition" mind frame.
And Blizzard continues to design the game that way. Things like "we give X this unit (or buff) in order to better fight this unit" are their bread and butter when it comes to patches.
So don't hope much, HotS while probably being a better game will still have the same nerf, whine, nerf, whine patterns.
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On March 11 2013 04:09 sitromit wrote:Meanwhile in Proleague Protoss has been utterly dominating both races. Here are the numbers for Round 1-3 of proleague 2012-2013: http://www.sc2ratings.com/stats.php?season=spl2PvT 61%, PvZ 56.5%, ZvT 53.1%
Meanwhile in my personal platinum division Protoss has a 95% winrate. End of story!
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On March 11 2013 04:09 sitromit wrote:Meanwhile in Proleague Protoss has been utterly dominating both races. Here are the numbers for Round 1-3 of proleague 2012-2013: http://www.sc2ratings.com/stats.php?season=spl2PvT 61%, PvZ 56.5%, ZvT 53.1%
What is sample size?
Also what is the central limit theorem?
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On March 11 2013 04:15 ktgster wrote:What is sample size? Also what is the central limit theorem?
You do realize that the stats for each GSL season that this thread is based on are from half the number of games per matchup as those PL stats?
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On March 10 2013 19:04 samurai80 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 00:10 Assirra wrote:On March 09 2013 23:42 mlspmatt wrote:
Game looked pretty balanced before Queen buff. Makes you wonder why that was implemented. What did Blizzard see in the numbers that led them to the conclusion it was needed.
Terran dominated for a long time, but it wasn't all due to balance. Terran had a stronger tradition of champions from BroodWar, a lot of the current top Koreans grew up watching these guys, so it was natural that a greater share of talented Koreans choosing to play SC2 would choose Terran. And Terran was IMBA for a while as well. Are we seriously back to the "Terran has better players" nonsense again? So many of them believe they are just better so that's why their winrate should be higher. It's complete bullshit.
I think it's better to look at consistent players across all patches, relatively to race strength and playstyle.
For example, a lot of random "trash" Terrans from the GomTvT Supertournament era are gone (think asd, virus...). What's left of the Terran race at its weakest? Litterally the best of the best, like Taeja, MarineKing, GuMiHo, Bomber, top Kespa players like Innovation, Flash and Fantasy, players that are widely acclaimed as the best microers, macroers and multitaskers the race can offer, and for a long time (MKP is considered a micro god since Open Season 2).
Conversely, who was good at Zerg when Zerg was bad? Well, almost exclusively DRG, Nestea and Leenock. Nestea with incredible godly decision making, insight and creative builds, Leenock on the back of wild tactics and micro (he's the only one to make burrowed banelings attempts work) and DRG hailed as a mechanical monster and a macro god. They're still there of course (well, Nestea's time has passed I think), but a lot (like, a LOT) of Zergs popped kinda out of nowhere when "circumstances" started to favor them. Who's got godly creep spread? Well, everyone, as they at least make 4 queens as soon as they're on 2 bases. Who's got godly macro and larva management? Well, they kinda have 70 drones by default anyway, the rest is up to their injects. Who's got the best infestor micro? Nah, I'm just teasing ya.
The point is, there is no such thing as "Terran players are just better", that's just bullshit as you said. What is true however, is that we can only truly acknowledge the best players of their race, when said race is at its lowest. I don't think anyone would doubt the skill of the remaining Terran in Code S. I will be interested to see however if the myriad of Zerg players (including our dear foreigner heroes) that are considered "top players" will still be doing as well in HotS, which is arguably much less advantageous for them.
I talked only about Terran compared to Zerg, but what I said is even more true for Protoss compared to the other two. 7 in Code S (with Rain seeded) is not a lot, and you can be sure those guys are really consistently good at Protoss. I mean MC? The guy is there since Open Season 1.
I know that this opinion will not be shared by many on TL, which promotes kind of the "game is balanced at all points, only the better players win" mindset.
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On March 10 2013 20:39 Big J wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 18:55 monkybone wrote:On March 10 2013 16:27 AstroPegnuin wrote:
It's always funny to read how biased Terran players are and ignorant to the actual realities of the games balance, Terrans would tell you that they deserve to be made Saints because playing Terran is of the same caliber of Jesus' sacrifice. The whole foreigner Terran struggle argument is completely invalid to me because there are no where near as much hard working foreign Terran as there is Protoss and Zerg, I would love to see someone veto all foreigner players who have trained in Korea who have predominantly been Protoss and Zerg in the foreigner standings, I would not at all be surprised to see Terran do much better on the totem pole for non KR.
There's a reason why there's not as many Terran players and Protoss and Zerg players. There is a continuous spectrum of skill among the players, and the density is just higher at the top for Protoss and Zergs. For every mediocre Protoss and Zerg you have a bad Terran who is not differing in skill. And for every good Protoss and Zerg you have a mediocre Terran. It gives the impression of that there are less Terrans than Zergs and Protosses, but the matter of fact is that the few foreign Terran players who actually are relevant practice their ass off like no one else, like Kas. To just look at it superficially and say that there's just not as many Terrans as there are Zergs and Protosses and state that as a reason why Terran is doing bad in the foreign scene is inverting the causality. Terran isn't doing bad because of lack of Terrans. There is a lack of Terrans because Terran is harder at the pro level. That's such a crap myth that Terrans continously try to build up. Anytime a foreigner was really dominant you could find more than one source saying that he/she has Koreanlevel mechanics - Idra, Jinro, Huk, Naniwa, Stephano, MaNa, Thorzain, Nerchio. Basically just read a list of premier tournament winners, lookout for foreigners and you will find those names - and hardly any other apart from a few exceptions - again. It's the guys with Code A/S mechanics that are topforeigners, regardless of what they play. Even more, if you go to sc2ranks.com and watch the racedistribution of Korea you will see that Protoss was often the most played race there. According to the "Protoss/Zerg easier"-myth the GSL should have had at least the same Protoss representation as it had Terrans or Zergs right now (similar/higher amount of players, easier to go pro with protoss according to the myth). But this statistical effect didn't show up for 2.5years. We know today that gameplay 2 years ago was very suboptimal. According to P/Z "easier to learn", players of those races should have dominated Terran at that time as Terrans would have been stuck at a lower skilllevel compared to P/Z mediocre skilllevel. I ask you, where were they? Why could Mvp, Polt, MKP, MMA dominate over players that with the same training were already closer to optimal play?
You can't use that as your "proof" of a crap myth. You aren't in any position to state that MVP, Polt, etc *wouldn't* have won even if they used a different race.
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On March 11 2013 05:31 D_K_night wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 20:39 Big J wrote:On March 10 2013 18:55 monkybone wrote:On March 10 2013 16:27 AstroPegnuin wrote:
It's always funny to read how biased Terran players are and ignorant to the actual realities of the games balance, Terrans would tell you that they deserve to be made Saints because playing Terran is of the same caliber of Jesus' sacrifice. The whole foreigner Terran struggle argument is completely invalid to me because there are no where near as much hard working foreign Terran as there is Protoss and Zerg, I would love to see someone veto all foreigner players who have trained in Korea who have predominantly been Protoss and Zerg in the foreigner standings, I would not at all be surprised to see Terran do much better on the totem pole for non KR.
There's a reason why there's not as many Terran players and Protoss and Zerg players. There is a continuous spectrum of skill among the players, and the density is just higher at the top for Protoss and Zergs. For every mediocre Protoss and Zerg you have a bad Terran who is not differing in skill. And for every good Protoss and Zerg you have a mediocre Terran. It gives the impression of that there are less Terrans than Zergs and Protosses, but the matter of fact is that the few foreign Terran players who actually are relevant practice their ass off like no one else, like Kas. To just look at it superficially and say that there's just not as many Terrans as there are Zergs and Protosses and state that as a reason why Terran is doing bad in the foreign scene is inverting the causality. Terran isn't doing bad because of lack of Terrans. There is a lack of Terrans because Terran is harder at the pro level. That's such a crap myth that Terrans continously try to build up. Anytime a foreigner was really dominant you could find more than one source saying that he/she has Koreanlevel mechanics - Idra, Jinro, Huk, Naniwa, Stephano, MaNa, Thorzain, Nerchio. Basically just read a list of premier tournament winners, lookout for foreigners and you will find those names - and hardly any other apart from a few exceptions - again. It's the guys with Code A/S mechanics that are topforeigners, regardless of what they play. Even more, if you go to sc2ranks.com and watch the racedistribution of Korea you will see that Protoss was often the most played race there. According to the "Protoss/Zerg easier"-myth the GSL should have had at least the same Protoss representation as it had Terrans or Zergs right now (similar/higher amount of players, easier to go pro with protoss according to the myth). But this statistical effect didn't show up for 2.5years. We know today that gameplay 2 years ago was very suboptimal. According to P/Z "easier to learn", players of those races should have dominated Terran at that time as Terrans would have been stuck at a lower skilllevel compared to P/Z mediocre skilllevel. I ask you, where were they? Why could Mvp, Polt, MKP, MMA dominate over players that with the same training were already closer to optimal play? You can't use that as your "proof" of a crap myth. You aren't in any position to state that MVP, Polt, etc *wouldn't* have won even if they used a different race.
Yeah and that's absolutly not what I was talking about... I was stating that Terran is not harder to learn and therefore it was possible for those players to win tournaments. Of course I believe that those guys are/were amazing players. But if Terran was really reasonably harder to learn than the other races, they other races would have dominated them at times from which we know that there was still a lot to learn about the game. (because they would have been "further down the road", if it had been easier for them to learn)
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On March 11 2013 03:43 Sabu113 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 11 2013 03:15 Rabiator wrote:On March 09 2013 19:58 rj rl wrote:
lol protoss was never good, that's sad Not a lot of Protoss in the tournament means that the sample size is smaller for them and every loss counts more than for the other two races. Thus Protoss will have a bad statistic every time they dont win the tournament. On March 11 2013 03:06 Tobblish wrote:
Thanks for this Orek, good read and some quite horrifying stats hopefully hots wont be as volatile. My prediction is that it will be even more so (unless it is totally skewed towards one dominating race), because WoL wasnt really "finished balancing" (there were changes to the units right until the end) and HotS adds new units on top of that ... There are some obvious reasons as to why the game is so volatile and hard to balance, but I guess most people are unwilling to hear them (again). I am glad you're taking hte level headed approach... Statistics are merely a tool to tell a story. Any halfway competent person observing the games could draw a roughly similar timeline to what the stats pulled. GomTvT was the consequence of a badly designed and badly balanced game. God I wish people would look past their personal ladder problems.
I am the guy who is sitting on the couch with a bag of chips watching the game solely for the upcoming screw-ups by the Blizzard balancing team. It will happen, because they didnt manage to get a stable balance for WoL in all those years and the new HotS units are even funkier than most of the previous stuff. I should seriously make a bet as to when Blizzard comes around and notices that there are real problems in their mechanics which make balancing rather impossible.
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Sweet report Orek. As always.
Your subjective thoughts are really well thought out, though perhaps a bit "mainstream" at times. Personally I think the Zerg OP of now is more connected to earlier infestor buffs than the queen buff... the queen buff allowed them to survive the only answer to infestor broodlord --- early aggression.
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I think it should be noted that while interesting, this data is more useful to the observer and developer, not the player. What I mean is that while everything isn't necessarily balanced, it's always beatable. If your goal is to be good at the game, I'd shy away from reading threads like this one, Anything the other guy can do, you can beat. Take Goku's beginner's mindset and apply it to SC2, and it'll make your life much easier as a player.
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